Et In Arcadia Ego
by Viginti Duo
Summary: The calm before the storm... Whispers of the Old Gods. The shadow of The Magician. Choice versus providence. Seiftis, post-game.
1. Prologue

**DISCLAIMER: **I do not own FF8, its characters, or the world this fic takes place within. I'm just having a little bit of fun with it all, making absolutely no profit; please don't sue.

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**Prologue:** Alea Iacta Est

* * *

_Fate raised an eyebrow. "And no cheating, Lady," he said._

_"But who could cheat Fate?" she asked. _

_He shrugged. "No one. Yet everyone tries."_

_"And yet again, I believe I felt you giving me a little assistance against the others?"_

_"But of course. So that the endgame could be the sweeter, Lady."_

_[ …]_

_"Nevertheless," said Fate gnomically. _

_He scooped the dice into their unusual box, and then glanced up at her._

_"Unless," he added, "you wish to resign…?"_

_She shook her head. "Play." she said._

_"You can match my stake?"_

_"__Play__."_

_**-Terry Pratchett, 'The Color of Magic'**_

_**

* * *

**_

He left his King open.

It wasn't like him to make such careless mistakes. Sometimes it almost seemed as if he _let_ her win; he was the best strategist of the two, after all. No matter what the case, however, she did not enjoy such a shallow victory.

The Ice Maiden's eyes rolled upwards, chin resting on her intertwined fingers. "Are you being careless or just insufferably chivalrous?"

The words cut through his train of thought and he looked up, as if only now waking up from a deep trance. "What?"

Shiva arched a fine, blue eyebrow. "Are you even paying attention?"

"I was," he hurried to say, his usually booming voice sounding odd when he was trying to speak gently. "I mean… I was trying to."

Shiva cocked her head to the side, looking at him across the chessboard. His eyes were reflected against the translucent red and blue pieces. "What's troubling you?" she asked.

"Shouldn't you know?"

The look he gave her was all she needed to finally realize: She _did_ know.

They both did.

She had felt it, not too long ago. It could have been eons in human terms, at some point during the game that never seemed to end, but it felt like mere minutes to her. It was unsettling, that feeling in the pit of her stomach. And faintly recognizable. She had begun to suspect it was so, but thought it was far too soon. Had it already been that long?

But then he made a careless move. Which hadn't really been careless after all; it was meant to happen. The moment his King's last shred of protection crumbled down like a wall, she knew it was by his own doing. She saw his clawed fingers tremble.

Anticipation.

Thrill.

It was already under way.

"Is it time?" Shiva asked, a ghost of a smile on her lips. The smile was timidly trying to reach her eyes.

He looked up from the chessboard, meeting her crystalline blue gaze and nodded. Even his own beastly face was capable of producing a smile right now. "It is time," Ifrit said.

Smiling, she brought one slim finger forward.

Her azure Queen glided straight ahead, leaving a faint trail of frost on the chessboard in her wake. The red Knight seemed to almost cower at first, but eventually accepted defeat with honor and gusto.

He always did.

Queen takes Knight. Rook checks King.

"Checkmate."

* * *

**A/N: **So… I'm back.

With a totally new fic. It's a project that went through many stages in the past, transforming into something completely different than it used to be. Me likey. And I hope you will, too. Chapter 1 should be already posted as well (unless you spotted this the minute I put it up). I know it's confusing and raises a lot of questions, some of which I might answer and some, are for you to figure out through the course of the story.

Experience has taught me the fanfic authors, like many other types of authors, tend to take some things for granted from time to time when writing, things that are essential for the understanding of a chapter by their readers, so I expect a number of questions to pop out every now and then for things I have mistakenly left unexplained. For that very reason, I shall direct you to the forums, where I've created a forum to answer questions for this fic. Fell free to direct all your queries there, and I'll check it as often as I can. The name of the forum is the same as that of the fic, and can be found under the category Games, Final Fantasy 8, naturally.

As for the title itself… Look it up if you wish. It may hint to what's coming in the future.

That's all.

**04/10/2010 EDIT: The forums are no longer going to be used.**


	2. Chapter 1: Pax Galbadiana

**DISCLAIMER: **Everything you recognize ain't mine. No profit here (chyeah, I wish), so don't sue.

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**Chapter 1:** Pax Galbadiana

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_"Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage."  
__**- Ray Bradbury**_

_"In a mad world, only the mad are sane."__**  
**__**- Akira Kurosawa **_

_**

* * *

**_

"Gray Zero… to… Leader… copy?"

Oh, how he hated working in Trabia. If there was one place in the whole world that hadn't really been affected by the ban on radio signals nearly twenty years ago, it was Trabia. The vast mountains made it very difficult to get a good reception. Even so, the fact that they were underground was most likely to blame as well.

Weapon held in one hand, he slowly, carefully, reached up. He pressed the gloved tip of his finger against the frequency control and toyed with it for a few seconds, searching for a clearer reception.

"…repeat. Gray Zero to Gray Leader, do you copy?"

_There we go_.

"Affirmative. Over," he said as quietly as he could.

"Status report. Over."

"Moving along in 2-1-2 formation. Gray Two and Gray Four lead, Gray Leader in position one, Gray One and Gray Three bring the rear. No targets currently in sight. Over," he whispered into the tiny microphone attached to his helmet.

"Proceed as planned. Thermal sensors have reached their limit. They won't be able to pick anything up in a few feet, so be careful. Over and out."

"Copy that. Over," said the Gray Leader, signaling his team now. "Switch to infrared and carry on in 2-1-2. Over."

Almost in unison, the five black-clad men reached up and pulled their visors down. The Gray Leader signaled the two men in front to start moving. As one, the five mercenaries took one step after the other, dirt and gravel crunching under their booted feet.

Gray Two came to a stop at the woebegone wooden door at the end of the hallway and turned to look at him. The leader gave him a firm nod and tightened his fingers around his weapon. Through his earpiece, he could hear the sound of Gray Two's labored breath as the latter approached the door. He closed his eyes, concentrating in earnest, until a clear blue shield formed in front of Gray Two; a Protect spell. The two men leading the small raid took this as their cue to bring the door down. It didn't take more than a single shove with their shoulders before the ancient-looking barrier shattered into a bundle of dust, cobwebs and splinter.

By the time the last few pieces of wood had crumbled to the floor, the Gray Leader had stepped into the dark room that had just been revealed to them, weapon at the ready for any imminent rebuttal. The scope on his weapon scanned the unlit room quickly, searching for any indications of another presence in the room; he found none. "Clear," he whispered into the microphone, and the other four soon joined him, making a reverent deal out of re-scanning the room as a precautionary measure.

It took a few minutes of almost complete silence, save from the combined sound of their breaths, to realize that the room they had just entered contained nothing but more dust and a few old, misshapen chairs that had been knocked down on the floor. The only remarkable feature of the room was that there were no exits.

"Dead-end?" Gray Four muttered, eyes still trying to spot anything the others may have missed.

"Can't be," said the Gray Leader. "We have the blueprints; there should be a way out of this room."

"Maybe the passage caved in?" Gray One suggested, but Gray Three was quick to discard that theory.

"There are no signs of a cave-in in here," he said. "If anything, it looks a little bit _too_ neat, if you ask me. This place was dug carefully."

"Is anyone else sweating their _asses_ off in this thing?" grumbled the Gray Leader, yanking his helmet off. "Someone contact Binary Boy and ask him what the hell's going on," he ordered as he knelt down, wiping a few beads of sweat off his brow.

Gray Two fiddled with the frequency control for a few seconds. "This is Gray Two. Gray Zero, do you copy? Over."

_"Yeah, Gray Zero copies. What's wrong?"_ came a voice filled with boredom and static on the other end.

The Gray Leader held up a hand to silence the man about to reply and picked up his helmet, pulling the microphone cord out to speak straight into it. "_You_ tell us," he growled. "There was supposed to be a Hynedamned exit somewhere around here according to _your_ blueprints, but we can't find shite."

_"If you made an effort to actually describe where 'around here' is, I might be able to help."_

"We spoke less than five _minutes_ ago. Where do you _think?_ We're in the room right after the main hallway."

There was a small pause on Gray Zero's end. _"That's impossible; I'm _certain_ I—"_

"There's _no_ bloody exit here. You must've fucked up when—"

_"I do _not_ fuck up,"_ replied Gray Zero, in a tone which clearly stated that if anyone dared challenge that claim, they would be very sorry indeed. _"I got the right shit, S—"_

"Hey! No names, fucktard. The line might not be secure," the Gray Leader cut in quickly.

A sigh from the other end of the line. _"It's safe; I _know_ it is. I made certain myself."_

"Well maybe someone overrode it."

_"Impossible."_

"There's _always_ a bigger fish, you idiot," said the Gray Leader, by now getting considerably frustrated. "Now about that exit…?"

The sound of keystrokes came from the other end, followed by a weary groan. _"It's there, dammit. Right _there_. There's a bloody exit marked right on the top rightmost corner. The blueprints are _recent. _ Hell, the whole structure's way too recent for them to be old."_

"Hold on a second," said the Gray Leader, starting to stand up. "Your right or my right?"

_"How the hell should I know where you're standing? Your right as you entered the room."_

The leader stood up on his feet, moving towards the aforementioned corner. There truly was nothing there; or at least nothing visible upon first look. The man began to run one gloved palm over the relatively smooth walls, but he found nothing.

_"Talk to me,"_ came Gray Zero's voice through the microphone.

"Nada," the leader said, but continued to search nonetheless.

_"Maybe it caved?"_

"Nah, TNT-happy says there's no signs of that."

_"Well… er… Perhaps—"_

"Hold it," said the Gray Leader. He dragged the sole of his boot over the ground before him; it didn't feel solid. He gave it a small stomp for good measure. _Wood. _ A trapdoor. "Found it."

_"Wait, wha—?"_

_

* * *

_

"Commander Leonhart's office, this is SeeD Ross speaking. How may I help you?"

Sipping her lukewarm coffee, Shizuka Ross, Balamb Garden's Library Girl extraordinaire, lazily jotted down the credentials of the caller. The girl had long ago realized that regular SeeD missions were not really what she was cut out for, though there were different ways she could serve Garden instead. She had entered the academy of elite mercenaries to prove, to herself more than to others, that her timidness was something she could either work around, or eventually rid herself of. As it turned out, she hadn't been able to do either. But the young woman's sharp wit and friendly disposition made her a valuable asset when it came to Garden's bureaucratic affairs.

That having been said, her dreams of a fascinating career did not include preparing Squall's extra strong coffee and taking his phone-calls. When the opportunity had come up for her to leave the library and work in Squall's office, she had immediately taken it, something she now regretted.

Zell, knowing all about his girlfriend's frustration with her job, had promised he would talk to Squall and see what could be done about giving Shizuka something a little more challenging to work with. For the time being, however, she had to be patient and simply go through the motions, she thought, as she continued taking down notes on what the caller was telling her.

The moment she thanked the man on the other end of the line and placed the receiver back down, the mahogany door behind her was wrenched open. She hurried to minimize the Solitaire window hovering incriminatingly on the forefront of her desktop and looked over her shoulder to see Squall's head peeking through the crack of the door.

"Who was that?" he asked.

"Mission request from FH," she replied. Her laconic reply wasn't enough for the Commander; he gave her an expectant look, waiting to hear the rest. Shizuka hesitated. "The uhh… Umm…"

"Yes…?"

_Oh well… Best get it over with. _"They said they're having a bit of trouble with a Fastitocalon infestation in the area. They, uhh… the fish that is… they keep chewing their nets," she finally managed.

Squall's expression immediately darkened. Shizuka felt her shoulders tighten as she came face-to-face with the kind of eyes Squall reserved for every bearer of bad news. It wasn't really that Balamb Garden wasn't making ends meet. In fact, business had never been as lucrative. In Irvine's words, the ends were meeting like a motherfucker. On the other hand, the lack of any other active Garden organizations made it practically impossible to ignore requests for help, even those as trivial as the most recent one from FH. The Garden system had operated smoothly in the past, spreading missions evenly among three academies.

However, in the wake of war, two thirds of the Garden Alliance had been put out of business, for different reasons each. Trabia Garden had been utterly destroyed, and Galbadia Garden was currently under suspension by the Garden Council for siding with the Sorceress two years ago. As such, Balamb Garden had to serve the needs for mercenary manpower on a global level.

Even worse, the world now had little need for serious missions. Pax Galbadiana had made things a little more… well, _peaceful_ for everyone. Balamb Garden survived on sponsorships alone, but it wouldn't last for much longer.

On the upside, ever since the fallout from the war had been cleared up, Galbadia had become fertile ground for missions; every nation that had once been independent would be soon looking for a chance to break free from the Galbadian Empire, whose leadership was now in a state of complete and total disarray. The interim government was dealing with minor uprisings daily, and the few SeeD cells deployed throughout Galbadia reported that things were already in motion.

In the meantime, however, the Garden's most pressing concern were Fastitocalon Fish.

"I umm… told them we'd uhh… think about it…" Shizuka began, but received the slam of Squall's door in reply.

With a sigh, Shizuka turned around again and clicked on the minimized Solitaire window. Some days, she _really_ missed the times when Rinoa used to hang out in the office and found ways to distract Squall or keep him happy in general. Not that she had anything against the girl; in fact she liked her quite a bit, though the feeling tended to wither every time the young Sorceress accidentally pressed a button that seemed to erase everything Shizuka had been working on for hours upon hours. Though far from an expert, Shizuka had a fairly decent understanding of computers and modern software, a fact that always made her wonder what on earth that little button that Rinoa claimed to have accidentally pressed was.

Lately, she'd begun to wonder if it was the on/off power button.

The door of Squall's office burst open once more, and in her haste to cover the screen again, Shizuka swiveled her chair around and pressed her back against the monitor, throwing her arms behind her head. Squall blinked at her.

"What are you doing?" he asked, face screwed up in suspicion and confusion.

"Nothing!" Shizuka hurried to say, eyes wide as she struggled to feign innocence. "Just uh… chilling…?"

Squall arched an inquiring eyebrow, but didn't question her any further. "Where's everyone?" he asked instead.

"Everyone?"

"Where's Quistis?"

"In Centra," Shizuka said, in a tone that suggested he should've already known.

"Oh, right," Squall mumbled, rubbing his forehead. Shizuka took this as a cue for more coffee, though her current position made it rather uncomfortable to reach for the pot and fill a fresh cup. _One more talent for my resume_, she mused inwardly. Squall only continued speaking once he had a warm cup of fresh caffeine pushed in his waiting hand. "Selphie, too, right?"

Shizuka nodded.

"Xu?"

"Instructor Aki invited her as a guest speaker for his lecture today," she replied.

"Irvine?"

"It's his weekend off."

"…Zell?"

"Cafeteria."

"…Rinoa?"

"Work."

The mug shook in Squall's hand, and with purse of his lips, he turned on his heel and slammed the door behind him again.

Through the closed door, Shizuka could hear faint mumbling, until a noise that sounded suspiciously like a stapler hitting the wall was heard, followed by the words, "…GOT A _GARDEN_ TO RUN!"

* * *

When the last mercenary had descended through the wooden trapdoor, the team resumed their previous formation under the Gray Leader's orders and proceeded deeper into the underground tunnel. The hide-out, the leader noted with an arched eyebrow, no longer resembled something that had been dug underground. The structure looked more like sewers that had been -mercifully- swept clean. _There are no cities within the vicinity. Where the hell did the sewers come from?_

"I'm picking something up," Gray One spoke into his microphone all of a sudden, toying with the frequency control attached to his helmet.

Everyone came to a stop at his words, trying to find the correct frequency to listen in as well.

The Gray Leader frowned. For the past minute, he had heard what sounded like absolute nonsense to him, though he had managed to pick up a few words here and there. Still not enough to make any sense of the mutterings, however. "What language is that?" he asked his men.

"Trabian," replied Gray Four.

_Huh… Knew it sounded familiar._ "What are they saying?"

Gray Four remained silent for a fair few minutes, listening to the conversation taking place somewhere within the structure. Once he'd heard enough, he turned to the leader and said, "They're talking about a shipment of C-4 they're waiting on. I think they're working on the wiring now."

"How much is a 'shipment'?" the Gray Leader asked, fearing the answer.

"Couple of kilos."

_Fuck._ _That's enough to blow a Hynedamned hole in the world. _"Then let's get crackin'," the leader said, shouldering his weapon. "Gray Zero," he spoke into the microphone.

_"Yeah?"_

"I want you to pinpoint a frequency for me; I think it was around 67.5 MHz. Get a lock on their position," he said.

_"Give me a couple of minutes. You got the blueprints around?"_

"Yeah."

_"Okay. I'll let you know the exact spot once I've secured a lock."_

"Good," the Gray Leader said, and removed his helmet again. "Meanwhile, listen up," he said, turning to the rest. "No messing about this time around. I don't want any unnecessary action. Shoot when you have to, cover when someone asks and _get the job done_. We've pulled off much harder missions; those amateurs shouldn't be too much of a hassle."

"Roger," came the unanimous reply.

_"Hey, I got your location."_

"Hit me," said the Gray Leader.

_"Uhh… three feet to your right."_

The leader blinked. "…what?"

_"Three feet to your right."_

"What the hell are you talking about? If they'd been that close we should've been able to hear something."

_"That's where the frequency came from."_

"Check again."

_"I did!"_

"Well check _again_."

_"The hell I will! There's no way I'm mistaken about this. Double and triple-checked."_

The Gray Leader's eyes shifted to his right. Sure enough, there was a metallic door just three feet away, but that didn't do much to inspire confidence. The place was filled with doors and hallways. "Are you _one hundred_ percent, sure?" he spoke into the microphone.

_"I'm a _thousand_ percent certain."_

Sighing, the Gray leader motioned towards the door. "Blast it," he told the rest of his group, and took a few steps back.

* * *

_Hot…_

_So hot…_

_I'm dying, aren't I? This must be what Hell feel likes._

_Hooooooot…_

"You've gotta… Make you ooown kind of musiiiic… Siiing your own special soooong…"

_Hyne… It's far too early for this… far too hot…_

"Maaaake your- Up, up, up Quistyyy! Even if nobody else sings alooooong…"

Groaning, Quistis Trepe rolled around the sheets in her bed, counting down from ten.

_Ten… Nine… Relax… Breathe… Six… She's just cheerful… Four… No need to take it out on her… Two… One… _

"It's so hot in here…" Quistis mumbled sleepily, wiping the sweat off her forehead.

"The AC is running," Selphie said, pulling her socks up to her knees. "But the hotel manager said something about energy conservation or whatever. We can't lower the temperature too much. It's not too bad," she said, getting up from her bed. She checked her reflection on the mirror by the bedside, while taking in big gulps off the mug of coffee in her hands.

Quistis let out a sigh, finally slipping her eyelids half-open. "Still… It's Centra."

Selphie shrugged, indicating that Quistis did have a point. Even at this time of the year, Centra had a lowest temperature of 109 degrees at best. "I know, I know… But if you don't get your squishy buns off the bed and hop in the shower _now_, we're gonna be late."

Quistis nodded wordlessly, kicking the sheets away with her legs. _Why did I even sign up for this?_ She should have stayed back in Garden, catching up on paperwork or handling some sort of mission instead of getting involved with Garden politics. This was far more Selphie's territory than hers, but the latter had insisted she tagged along. Not that she minded enjoying some of the luxuries of the five-star _Kaveria Resort_ hotel that Garden had so generously paid for, but some cool, refreshing November rain would've felt much better.

Stumbling out of the bed, she muttered a belated, "My buns aren't squishy," to Selphie and headed straight for the bathroom.

_Cold shower it is._

The spray of chilly water felt soothing beyond belief, and Quistis let the thin rivulets course through her hair and skin for a fair few minutes as she leaned against the shower tiles. Selphie's cheery song could still be heard through the walls of the bathroom.

"Siiing you oooown speeecial soooong… Maaaake you oown kind of muuusiiic… Even if nobody else sings aloooong…"

…_well alright, then._

_

* * *

_

Stepping in through the small cloud of dust and smoke, the Gray Leader entered the room, weapon at the ready.

The red laser of his scope streamed through thin tendrils of smoke, searching for any signs of movement. Four identical lasers soon followed suit, trying to cover every square inch of the room thoroughly as the dust slowly settled down.

Cautiously, the Gray Leader took a few steps further inside the room, already feeling that something wasn't quite right. Their surroundings weren't much different than they had been when they'd first entered the hide-out. Broken, abandoned furniture, a bunch of crates, nothing but a single table standing up and—

"The transmission…" Gray Four said almost faintly.

The Gray leader shifted his gaze over at the ancient-looking radio transmitter left upon one of the crates. A recording was being played. "Same thing we heard?" he asked, but he already knew the answer.

"Yeah… It's looping."

"It's a trap," Gray One gasped.

"Ya _think_?" the Gray Leader growled, rounding up on his team. "Out of here, NOW! Go, go, GO!"

The four men cleared the room as fast as they could, and the leader followed suit soon enough, after putting a bullet right through the transmitter in frustration. _A trap… All this preparation, the fucking journey… All for nothing… _He reached for the door—

Click.

"NL!"

For the merest flicker of a second, his heart stopped beating.

…_boom._

_

* * *

_

_À la claire fontaine,  
M'en allant promener  
J'ai trouvé l'eau si belle  
Que je m'y suis baigné_

_Il y a longtemps que je t'aime  
Jamais je ne t'oublierai._

_Sous les feuilles d'un chêne,  
Je me suis fait sécher  
Sur la plus haute branche,  
Un rossignol chantait_

_

* * *

_

The faint, pulsating hum in his ears woke him up. For a second, he thought he'd gone nearly deaf, picking up only minor changes in pitch, as if his head was underwater.

But the Second Sorceress War had thought him well enough… His hearing would return any moment now, with a shrill, painful ringing. There… There it was.

_Fuck, just shoot me now,_ he grumbled to himself, wincing as he instinctively covered his ears, though it was no use.

The explosion must've been loud enough to be heard to the four corners of the world. Was he missing a limb? No… everything felt intact. But his chest hurt. There was something very heavy lying right on top of him, squishing his lungs to jelly.

He opened his eyes, little pieces of plastic slipping down his cheeks. His visor had broken. _Fuck,_ everything_ feels broken. _It was impossible to say what hurt the most. His head, his ears, his chest, his legs? He could tell he was covered in dust, probably in bruises, too, and his hearing hadn't fully returned yet. He could only make out one single sound; a song.

Someone was singing.

_Wait… what?_

"Je voudrais que la rose fût encore au rosier …"

_What the...?_

"Et que le rosier meme á la mer fût jeté…"

"Stop it already," he groaned, more to himself than to the voice, thinking the song was a strange hallucination rather than reality.

Silence.

"À la claire fontaine, m'en allant promener. J'ai trouvé l'eau si belle. Que je m'y suis baigné…"

Turning his head to the side with difficulty, he saw through heavy-lidded eyes the source of the song. A woman was siting on the ground with her back against the upturned table. She was curled up into a tiny little ball, arms wrapped around her bent knees, and she swung back and forth on the spot, singing.

The Gray Leader blinked tiredly. Was he hallucinating? His team and he were the only ones in the room; they'd checked. He tried to take a deep breath in—and only now noticed the heavy metal door crushing his chest.

_Must've been blown off the hinges at the explosion_, he thought. Which was rather lucky, considering that if he hadn't been shielded by the door, the flying debris would've most likely killed him. Nevertheless, it would probably be wise to try to and push it off him; it was getting difficult to breathe.

"Il y a longtemps que je t'aime. Jamais je ne t'oublierai…"

"STOP IT," he growled, but his voice was soon drowned under a whopping coughing fit.

The woman went on, unperturbed. The Gray Leader glared at her through piercing, jade eyes, taking in her appearance. He was now convinced she was no apparition, for he could not think of a single reason why he'd choose to hallucinate about this woman, of all people. She was old, with long, almost white scraggly hair. Her skin was covered in deep wrinkles and she had a melancholy voice, hoarse with age and sorrow.

Even stranger than the fact that she was there, was the fact that she appeared to be unaware of her surroundings. Had she even noticed the explosion?

"Hey lady," the Gray Leader croaked, trying to get her attention. She didn't turn around. "Hynedammit," he swore through gritted teeth. He had an inkling she did not understand Balamese, and he was absolute crap when it came to foreign languages.

"Uhh… parlay voos Balamese?" he asked, now wishing he'd paid more attention in Trabian class as a kid. He blamed it all on Instructor Fairweather, who had what was without a doubt the most hypnotizing voice on the planet. "Esthari-go yamer... er... yamero, yameru? Shumi? Milai Centra? Fuck, parlay voos _anything_?"

As if coming out of a long, deep trance, the woman stopped singing and turned her weary blue eyes at him. Her gaze was unfocused, like that of a newborn child, following sounds rather than sights to direct its gaze. She looked at his general direction, cocking her head to the side. And then, suddenly, her gaze sharpened. She looked into his eyes, _straight_ into his eyes and gaped. She looked like she had just now noticed there was someone else in the room with her.

"Well?" the man growled impatiently.

Now, the Gray Leader liked to think of himself as a worldly man. He'd seen his fair share of strange, bewildering sights. But what happened next was beyond imagination. And his could get rather wild.

The old woman, with agility he wouldn't have thought possible, suddenly lunged straight for him, closing the distance between them on all fours and reaching for his face. With eyes as wide as saucers, the young man stared at the woman, dumbfounded, as she pulled his helmet off and caressed his face lovingly.

"Tu as arrivé! Il y a longtemps que je t'aime… Longtemps que je t'attend…" she began rambling on, her cold, spindly fingers running up and down his cheeks almost frantically.

"The _fuck_ do you think you're d-?"

"Je suis desolée, mon amour… Les roses bleues!" she yelped, grasping a handful of what appeared to be blue petals from the floor and waving them right in front of his face. "Les roses bleues! Elles ne sont pas ma faute… J'esperais… quele rosier meme á la mer fût jeté…"

The man looked from the blue petals to the woman and back again, noticing for the very first time that all the crates he had spotted earlier on had been upturned –and some destroyed- by the explosion. There were blue petals, like the very ones the old woman was clutching, spread all over the dusty floor. The crates must have been filled with them.

_The hell…?_

"Si beau… Si fort… Est-ce que tu me pardonnes?" the old woman whispered, her face inching closer to his. From this distance, he could count every wrinkle on her face, see the bloodshot whites of her eyes, smell her rancid breath.

"GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!" the soldier yelled, pushing her away with his one good arm; the other wouldn't budge.

Falling onto the floor again, looking panicky and heartbroken, the woman broke into shrill wails. "PAS MA FAUTE! CE N'EST _PAS_ MA FAUTE!" she shrieked. "ILS M'AS DISENT QUE JE SERAIS PARDONÉE! CE N'EST PAS _JUSTE_!"

Although he took pride in the fact that he wasn't a man easily frightened, the Gray Leader was now petrified. The woman was clearly insane and he was incapacitated; there was no telling what she could or would do, but whatever it was, he feared he wouldn't be able to stop it.

_No, not like this,_ he mentally screamed to himself. _I did not come this far to die like this. It can't be._

Much to his relief, Deux Ex Machina arrived in the form of a distorted voice.

_"Kkkhhhhttkhhhh…eader? KHHHH… ere? Khhhh… espond!" _

Reaching for his helmet hastily, the young man kept a wary eye on the woman who was now thrashing on the floor in between hysterics, repeating the same words over and over and clutching her hair manically. "Get me the FUCK out of there!" he hissed into the microphone, hoping against all hope that someone would hear.

_"Khh… NL? Khhh… at you?"_

"Yes, it's me. GET. ME. OUT."

_"Kkkhhh…'s going on?"_

"JUST GET ME OUT OF HERE!"

* * *

After what felt like an eternity, he could breathe fresh air again.

Fresh, cold, Trabian air.

Actually, the word breathing was a bit of an overstatement. Even though the door was now off his chest, his lungs had been sufficiently screwed up. A team of field medics was already by his side, working furiously over his chest before tending to the less grave injuries on the rest of his body. A cocktail of Hi-Potions, Curagas and Elixirs was being dumped straight into his veins, alleviating the pain to the point of almost non-existence. Instead, a rather pleasant numbness had spread all over his body, and there was a dull humming in his head.

He had spent almost two full hours in the abandoned hide-out, in the company of the wailing, psychotic woman. At the very least, she hadn't tried to touch him again, but her tears and shrieks had proven to be far more effective in making his skin crawl. Relief as such he'd never experienced washed over him when the rescue crew of his team reached them and pulled both of them out of the wreckage.

"How many lives you've got, man?" said a familiar male voice above him, chuckling. Gray Three, AKA SeeD Rhys Puck, was standing right over his stretcher.

"Fuck off n' let me 'njoy th' med-high," the Gray Leader mumbled, a wide, lax grin on his lips.

"No time for that; Jonah's looking for you," replied his peer.

"Whut's he wunt?" the Gray Leader mumbled, stifling a groan. "Washh it," he growled at a near-by medic who had nearly dropped a vial of elixir in her hurry to get to him.

"Sorry, SeeD Almasy," the young girl –no doubt a trainee- muttered quickly before administering the elixir.

"Wondering if you'd be able to attend the meeting in this condition, actually," spoke a third -male again- voice and Seifer Almasy came face-to-face with the looming figure of Jonah Meric.

Seifer merely raised a hand and gave his superior a thumbs-up in response to the question.

"Are you sure?" Meric spoke, arching an eyebrow. "I called Caradoc to brief him on the situation and he says he can handle it himself. He'll be sure to let Van Helgon know why you couldn't make it."

Seifer shook his head. "Ah'll be kay… High's gunna wear off, right?"

"Flight lasts a good two hours, plus one hour before take off, so yes, it should," Meric replied, scrutinizing the blond man in concern.

"Then ish gud," Seifer said, closing his eyes.

"We probably shouldn't have poured so much magic into your system, but… you seem to be handling it alright," Meric said, a flicker of amusement dancing in his eyes. Giving Seifer a rarely affectionate pat on the shoulder, he made a move to leave the scene along with the other soldier, before coming to a halt and turning to face Seifer again. "The woman who was brought out with you… Did she speak to you at all? Did she say anything?"

Seifer slipped his eyes open again, his gaze holding nothing but weariness and annoyance. "Fuckin' crazee bitch… Jush junk… Culdn't undr'sand. Went m'ntal on me."

Meric simply nodded and turned to leave again.

"Whut're you gunna do with 'er?"

Jonah stopped on his tracks and took a small pause before looking over his shoulder. "The _Hope's Chapel_ center will surely welcome her. I don't think there's anything we can do for her right now."

Seifer frowned. "She wuz high?"

"Very much so," Meric replied. "She might be needing psychiatric attention in the future, but for now, a rehabilitation clinic would be the best course of action. The dementia could've been caused by the drugs."

The young man nodded, his eyes slipping shut again. What kind of sick-ass grandma got high anyway? And what the hell had she been doing right in a smuggler hide-out? And what ab— _Ohhh, 'nother Curaga…_

_Awesome…_

_

* * *

_

**A/N: **Don't understand French (Trabian)? Neither does Seifer. So don't expect any translations. Whenever I want you to understand something spoken in a foreign language, I will make sure it's translated in my A/N. Still, don't feel like you're missing out on anything. I don't think it would make much sense anyway, given that this is only the beginning.

Also, my apologies to French people. My French is very rusty, and hopefully, I haven't butchered the language too much. If I have, I'm terribly sorry.

Like I said in the Prologue, I'm sure thee are a few things that confused you about the above. Fell free to post questions in the forum, but please don't get mad if I leave some of those unanswered. It means that it's something vital for the continuation of the fic and is supposed to be revealed to you when it's time.

Till next time.

**04/10/2010 EDIT: **

**-2****nd**** scene, Shizuka talks about the state of Galbadia at the time and the smaller states about to revolt to earn their independence.**

**- The song Selphie sings is **_**Make Your Own Kind of Music, **_**by "Mama" Cass Elliot.**

**-** **_À la claire fontaine_ is a traditional French children's song**


	3. Chapter 2: Tabula Rasa

**DISCLAIMER: **Seifer, Quistis and co ain't mine. The board members and Jonah are, but I don't think I could make any money outta them.

**A/N: **A shout-out to everyone who's read and reviewed this story so far. Thanks, guys. It's great to know I've got people reading this from the very beginning. A few clarifications for this chappy can be found in the forum, so if there's anything that makes you go 'Huh?' in this chapter, read through what I've posted there, and then direct any further queries there as well. Just to remind you, the forum for this fic has the same title as the story.

A great many thanks to Alonia Everclear and her classic Seiftis _Requiem for an Eternal Soldier,_ for reminding me that older FFs used to classify magic as Black, White and Blue. Spellcasters in said games were called mages, but since we already had Sorceresses in FF8, I decided to go with mages for Blue magic, which only makes an appearance in the game as Quistis's Limit Break.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 2:** Tabula Rasa

* * *

_"No matter how cleverly you sneak up on a mirror, _

_your reflection always looks you straight in the eye."_

– _**Louis Cyphere, 'Angel Heart (1987)' **_

_**

* * *

**_

Fame was a strange thing. Fascinating, and at times either terrifying or straight-out insane.

"You're not really famous until you're a BEZ dispenser," Selphie had wisely said once. "Either that or a Triple Triad card."

The fate of having her likeness immortalized on a candy dispenser, she had mercifully avoided. But the card...?

Quistis Trepe, a renowned Triple Triad enthusiast, had been utterly shocked to see her own blue eyes staring back at her in that fabled game with Dr. Kadowaki a few months ago. Apparently, she was the very last person who had been informed of this, as when she rushed over to share the discovery with her friends and fellow colleagues, that tidbit of information was already old news.

The only one who seemed to share her frustration was Squall; Rinoa had ever since taken a great liking to the game. She was notorious within the walls of Garden for playing with an almost full stack of laminated Squall cards.

The stoic Commander had not been impressed.

It was on her -_their_, rather- unexpected rise to celebrity status the moment the war had ceased that Quistis Trepe's thoughts were now wandering, as she sat into the comfortable chair of the board room. It was that very status that had dragged her from her –albeit mobile- home to the neutral grounds of Kaveria, Centra today. Aside from her regular duties as a SeeD, she was more than often forced to attend meetings such as the upcoming one to represent Balamb Garden's side in the Garden Council, along with the official Chief Rep, who was rather enjoying her new position.

Selphie Tilmitt.

Could there have been anyone else more fitting for the position?

Selphie was everything Garden needed as far as representation went: she was polite, cheerful, eager to work hard, and when she made an effort to downplay the Hippy Killing Machine act, she made a very good public speaker.

On the other hand, Quistis was still wondering why on earth she had been deemed worthy to attend this meeting. Granted, she could acknowledge that she had the proper eloquence to address such an audience and had a good understanding of how politics functioned, but she could still think of much better candidates.

"Could it _be_ any hotter in here?" Selphie whispered into Quistis's ear with a huff, fanning herself with her palm. "It's _Centra,_ for crying out loud. You'd think _they_ wouldn't be cheapskates when it came to air conditioning. The hotel, I get, but what's _their _excuse?" Selphie went on, and began to rummage through her purse. "Energy conservation, my ass..."

Quistis calmly sipped her now almost lukewarm water. When it had been brought before her, three shiny ice-cubes had been floating on the surface; they had melted within milliseconds. It was indeed very hot, as it always was in Centra, even during November. She couldn't blame her friend for pulling her outrageously expensive Esthari fan -a gift from Laguna- out of her bag. Still, she wished they would stop drawing attention to themselves before the start of the meeting. The rest of the Garden representatives were now giving the two women furtive glances.

Just when the patience of every attendant was beginning to grow dangerously thin, the door opened and everyone rose to their feet, Selphie still crankily fanning herself. Quistis tactfully took her friend's hand and lowered it down.

Rizo Van Helgon, the honorary head of the council, had entered the room followed by his personal assistant. Quistis had only heard about the man fleetingly in the past, mostly tales about his aristocratic air, and she could now fully appreciate the truth to be found in said rumors. Van Helgon appeared to have seen a battle or two in his days, his face marred with a few battle scars that his grayish beard didn't quite cover up. He was the proud owner of a sturdy, burly physique and was blessed with rather imposing height. The simple silver spectacles framing his pale blue eyes, and his strict facial features meant business. It was rather difficult to imagine that such a man would carry himself with any measure of grace, and yet he made his way towards the top seat of the oval table and took a seat with unexpected poise.

He gave Quistis the distinct impression she was staring at a mirror image of Squall, give a couple of decades on his back. And a pot belly. The visual almost made her grin.

"Please be seated," Van Helgon said in his baritone voice. The young brunette who had followed him into the room handed him a binder she had hastily opened to the first page. It couldn't have been more obvious that she was brand new and was trying her damndest to please Van Helgon. "I trust there are no absences? I'd like to get started as soon as possible."

A man from across the table whom Quistis vaguely recognized stood up. Van Helgon looked at him over the rim of his glasses. "SeeD Caradoc Cole, rank twenty three, Galbadia Garden representative," said the man, introducing himself. "I'm afraid my partner has been caught up in Trabia for reasons beyond his control. However, he should be arriving shortly; he contacted me an hour prior to your arrival and said he was already on his way," Cole explained. "However, I can represent Galbadia's side for the time being, so we can commence with your permission."

Behind the oval table, quick typing could be heard as Van Helgon's assistant kept the record of what was being said in the meeting.

"Very well," Val Helgon said, shifting his attention to the binder again. "Is Trabia's side present?"

"Present, your honor. Veteran SeeD Camaliel Atney, rank A," said the male counterpart of the Trabia side, rising. Quistis took his appearance in; she knew Atney, alright. Former soldier gone politician, gone soldier again. Short for a man, and if memory served right, he used to be much more portly, but recent events in his life had given him reason to shed many a pound and more gray hair than a man his age should have. "And SeeD Officer Calypso Julianni, rank twenty nine," he concluded, introducing the significantly younger woman who was accompanying him.

"Balamb?"

Quistis hastily smoothed the front of her SeeD uniform, rising. "SeeD Officers Quistis Trepe and Selphie Tilmitt, rank A. Present, your honor."

"Esthar?"

"SeeD Sarutobi Juno, rank A," spoke a young woman who had now risen from her seat. Quistis remembered the girl all too well from the time she had spent in Galbadia Garden herself. The other woman was a fine soldier, but Quistis had to wonder if her tendency to be biased had changed over the years. Hopefully, it had. "And SeeD Vodan Osric, rank A. Present, your honor," she finished.

"And Galbadia," Val Helgon finished with a nod at Cole's direction, making sure that every name on the census had been accounted for. "Now, over to the issues at hand…" Val Helgon began, readjusting his glasses and flipping over to the second page of the binder. "Let the record note that the sixth Garden Council meeting has commenced on November 19th, 4999 M.G. at exactly 1000 hours…"

* * *

"Rinoa, take a break. This is the second time in five minutes I've heard your stomach growl in agony," Dr. Kadowaki said with a chuckle, as she rearranged the medicine bottles Rinoa kept handing her.

The young Sorceress gave a little jerk, looking up at the physician almost guiltily. "No, no! It's perfectly fine, we have a lot of work to do and—"

"And you have already done far too much," the doctor interrupted her. "You opened up this morning, working alone for nearly two hours before I showed up. You deserve a nice, long break. Not to mention some food."

Rinoa Heartilly bit her lip hesitantly, hugging the binder she was holding close to her chest. There was no denying she was terribly hungry. Inventory day was never particularly fun, but since she had decided to take up this apprenticeship, she was determined to help the doctor with everything that needed to be done.

Being a Sorceress within the walls of an institution that was trained to kill people like her was already far too awkward a situation. Dating the Commander of said force while roaming around the corridors with nothing to do all day was bound to raise murmurs and whispers behind her back over what possible use she was being to this Garden.

She hadn't dared share her worries with any of her friends, not even Squall, fearing that they, too, might grow to resent her at some point for living a life of no responsibilities.

Be that luck, destiny, or whatever one might wish to call it, Dr. Kadowaki had crossed paths with the young woman during a particularly bad day and had listened patiently. When Rinoa's rambling and tears had been spent, the doctor had offered her a job. A position to help the Garden that had taken her in.

_"You're a Sorceress, Rinoa," Dr. Kadowaki told her. "A very powerful one, at that."_

_"But I could never be trained as a SeeD. It goes against everything the Garden stands for," Rinoa said with a shake of hear head. "And against many things _I _stand for."_

_"There are other ways you can help Garden."_

_"Like what?"_

_"How would you like to start an apprenticeship in the Infirmary?" the doctor suggested with a smile. "I think it would suit you. Not to mention gifted field medics are very rare; Garden is in desperate need of more of them."_

_Rinoa stared at her for a long, silent moment, her bloodshot eyes wide. "Me? A Healer? I… I don't know… I'm not sure I—"_

_"Like I said, you're a very powerful Sorceress," Kadowaki cut in. "Granted, you're a Black Sorceress if you want to get technical, but your ability to use White Magic still surpasses that of all SeeDs in here. You remind me more of a Blue Mage, to be frank. Not a full-fledged one, but a very decent one nonetheless."_

_"A… Blue Mage?"_

_"Blue Mages are technically Sorceresses as well," Dr Kadowaki explained. "Very rare, very misjudged. They're able casters of both White and Black Magic on an equal level."_

_"That's interesting, I don't think I've ever heard of one."_

_"Well, no, you wouldn't have. There hasn't been one in centuries," Dr. Kadowaki had gone on. "Still, every now and then, a gifted caster might consider following the path of Blue Magic, whether they're Sorceresses or not. Very few actually manage to make it to a decent level, much less master the ability, but there have been a few good examples."_

_Rinoa took a minute to think about this, her forehead creasing in curiosity. "You mean like Quistis?"_

_Kadowaki nodded, smiling. "You undeniably surpass Quistis in the field of Black Magic, but even though she's not a Sorceress herself, her White Magic is… phenomenal, for someone not born with the gift. But seeing as I couldn't possibly take her away from Garden's forces, I am relieved that there's at least one able Healer within our highest ranks. And I would be even more relieved and happy to know there could be two."_

_Rinoa let out a tiny smile at the compliment, hugging her knees and realizing that this was perhaps the first time someone had –albeit indirectly- told her she was needed. "So… you think I could make it? Become a field medic?"_

_"I do," the doctor said, smiling still. "Since SeeDship is not written in the books for you, you could serve as Garden's resident physician, once I retire. I don't think I have many years left on my back."_

_"B-but," Rinoa spluttered. "I'm not a doctor! Sure, I can do magic, but—"_

_"You're right; you're not. And I'm not trying to train you as one. There are a few things you should learn about anatomy and which medicine to prescribe for some situations where magic is not needed, but I'm fairly certain Garden could always hire a certified doctor to assist you on more complicated cases. My own spellcasting has seen better days, I'm afraid, and there's only so much one can do with traditional medicine when it comes to wounds that originate from magic."_

_Rinoa nodded, understanding what the doctor was trying to say. She wasn't a doctor, and would never be one, but she could make something of herself as a Healer. She wouldn't be getting in everyone's way, and she could finally prove she could be equal to them… Provide services to the Garden she had become a resident of so effortlessly. _

_"Well…?"_

_The young Sorceress straightened up, giving Dr. Kadowaki one of her beaming smiles. "I'll do it."_

"Are you sure?" Rinoa asked, biting her lip still. "I wouldn't want to take off when we have so much—"

"We're almost done here; I can finish up on my own," Dr. Kadowaki insisted. "Go get some food and some rest. I'm sure Squall could use a lunch break, too. Don't get me wrong; I love it that you're so willing to help, but you must remember to take it easy. Squall is being a bad influence on you," she added with a smirk.

Rinoa giggled and checked off the last few crates of Elixirs that had been accounted for, before handing her binder to Dr. Kadowaki. "Alright, then. I'll be back around two pm," she said, starting to remove her white lab coat.

"Don't you have an appointment with Edea today?" Kadowaki asked.

Aside from her apprenticeship in the Infirmary, Rinoa had regular training sessions with the former Sorceress in order to learn to control her magic properly and use it to its full potential without wearing herself out.

"Not today," Rinoa replied, folding her coat neatly. "Matron called me this morning and said she had some business to attend to, so we've rescheduled for Wednesday," she added with a shrug.

"Two pm it is, then. Enjoy your lunch."

"Bacon-lettuce sandwich and Motorade?" Rinoa asked, removing the hair-band that had kept her hair up in a ponytail all morning.

"Pardon?"

"I'm asking what I should order for you from the cafeteria," Rinoa said with a grin.

Kadowaki laughed, somewhat impressed that Rinoa had noticed she did tend to make the same order every Monday for lunch. "That sounds good," the doctor said, smiling. "Thank you."

"I'll tell them to make it quick," Rinoa said, already making her way towards the door of the infirmary. "_Your_ stomach has been protesting ever since eleven am."

Kadowaki laughed yet again.

* * *

Quistis's fingers toyed with the smooth surface of her glass as she listened to Camaliel Atney's speech carefully. She wasn't exactly on Galbadia's side after what she had seen with her very eyes during the war, but this man's words were nothing more than a merciless prosecution of an entire nation that had made the simple mistake of trusting the wrong Sorceress. It was a travesty.

Her own views were torn. On one hand, it felt a great deal like poetic justice to strip Galbadia of any right to reform a Garden for a prolonged amount of time after their actions in the Second Sorceress War, but on the other… it seemed unfair to turn them into a scapegoat for people's pain and suffering.

It was widely accepted among SeeDs that many of the evils done in Ultimecia's name had been done under the thrall of a spell, but she didn't know what to believe anymore. She knew Sorceress possession was a very real and terrifying matter, but how did one sort out the true victims from the liars? Had Martine, the former Galbadia Garden Headmaster, acted willingly? Had Seifer?

The trials that followed the war had been a tension-filled affair. There had been many false testimonies, she knew that much. She had even lied under oath herself, along with all her friends, in order to keep Ellone's anonymity and shield her from people who shared Odine's morbid fascination over powers like hers. Quistis had had little to do with the proceedings at the time; in an effort to learn the truth behind the events of the war, the Council had requested her presence only to narrate her version of that year and compare it to that of her peers.

The one who had been called on the stand repeatedly to testify for SeeDs who faced persecution had been Squall, and he had never revealed a thing about what he had witnessed in that courtroom. "Need to know policy," he had responded when they'd asked him. Nothing whatsoever about the fate of the war's participants.

Quistis let out a soft sigh. Two years had gone by and the world had yet to recover. Judgment had been passed hastily in an effort to tend to more pressing matters, like rebuilding what had been lost. Galbadia Garden had nearly made it out in the clear, until Trabia Garden pressed charges. _So here we are now,_ Quistis thought, trying to refocus on Atney's speech.

"Furthermore, it is my firm opinion that Galbadia should_ not_ be granted clemency-"

The Trabian's words were cut short by a firm knock on the door. Val Helgon held a hand up to politely pause the man's speech and turned towards the door. "Enter."

When Quistis heard the knock on the door, she suspected it was the second Galbadian representative who was running late, and she was indeed correct. But the sweep of thick, gray trenchcoat that interrupted the meeting proved to be more than a simple distraction.

"Ah, SeeD… Almasy," Val Helgon said, checking the census quickly. "Glad you could join us."

"I trust that you've been informed of the circumstances behind my tardiness, your honor?" the young man asked, with politeness that sounded alien on his lips.

"I have, not to worry. I'm sorry to say we have already begun, but your partner can surely fill you in on what has been discussed so far. Please be seated."

The blond gave Val Helgon a curt nod and made his way over to the empty seat right next to Caradoc Cole.

Quistis couldn't help but stare.

_Seifer Almasy_. In the flesh.

Clad in the latest version of Galbadian SeeD apparel, representing the side which, after the war, had declared a bounty on his head.

And yet it didn't look like the old Seifer at all.

With the air of a man who meant business and with calm, premeditated prudence, he took his seat quietly and began to remove his windswept gray trenchcoat. Quistis vaguely remembered hearing that he had been caught up in Trabia, which would explain his heavy clothing in this temperature. Upon closer scrutiny, his face looked pale and weary, but it couldn't have been clearer that he had tried to meticulously hide that very fact, with moderate success.

The old Seifer wore his scars proudly –quite literally at that, served with a side dish of a smirk worthy of Diablos. And he most certainly never subdued himself to conformities such as wearing a uniform.

Quistis managed to look away long enough to share a stare of utter bewilderment with Selphie. Neither of them needed to speak; they were probably wondering the very same things. Why was Seifer, of all people, present in a Garden Council meeting? How could he possibly be on Galbadia's side? How had he escaped prosecution after the war?

But the most worrying issue of all was that Seifer hadn't even so much as turned his head to acknowledge the two Balmish women. Instead, he quietly listened to Atney as the Trabian resumed his speech. His tact was unnerving.

Quistis took a deep breath and tied to stifle the uneasy feeling she had had ever since waking up that morning.

_This is going to get ugly…_

_

* * *

_

It was like music to her ears, the sound of children playing on the beach. Laughing, enjoying themselves, splashing each other with water.

Edea Kramer watched them from time to time out of the corner of her eye, and with a smile, she swept her long black hair behind her ear and went back to her work. She had always loved the little stone patio in the back yard of the orphanage. It smelled of fresh laundry and brackish seawater, it was mostly quiet, and it gave her a good view of the beach below to keep an eye on the children.

Not that she really needed to.

With help of the likes of the two adults mingling with the orphans, there was no need to worry. She couldn't have asked for better bodyguards than the ones who had accepted her offer. They certainly got along very well with the children, too, or at least tried in one of their cases.

"Oy! I don't think Fujin appreciates being buried in the sand, ya know?"

Edea looked up once more, chuckling. Raijin Takeshi was struggling to step out of the water and onto the beach, the weight of five or so children holding him down. Some of them were hanging from his arms and back and some had wrapped themselves around his legs, now getting dragged out to the shore by the tanned, colossal man. As for Fujin, only her head stuck out from the pile of sand dumped on top of her, and said head didn't look particularly happy. Still, Edea knew that if she wanted to break free, she would already have. Fujin would never admit it, but Edea knew she was enjoying the company and patiently endured the taunts that came along with it every now and then.

About an hour later, everyone left the beach to gather around Edea's table, which was no longer quiet, but she, for one, welcomed the disruption of peace. Fujin on the other hand...

"So is, like, your other eye red, too?"

"…"

"Take your patch out!"

"…"

"C'moooon, we wanna seeeeeeeeeeee!"

"…"

"C'mon Fujin, show uuuus!"

"Show uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuus!"

"Show us, show us, show us, show us, show us, show us, show us, show us, show us…"

"How's it goin', ya know?" Raijin asked, wrapping a towel around his shoulders as he took a seat next to Edea.

"A few dead-ends here and there," Edea said with a sigh. "But I might be able to sort most of them out. It's been a while, so in some cases there are few to none remaining family members to contact."

"Show us, show us, show us, show us…"

Raijin glanced down at the papers on Edea's lap, his eyes widening slightly at the familiar name on the top of the form. "Think you can actually get to the bottom of this one, ya know?"

"Show us, show us, show us, show us…"

"Well, I—" she began, but came to a stop at the sight of a sailing boat approaching the gulf down below. Both she and Raijin got up from their seats. Edea didn't have to ask; the moment she extended her arm, Raijin handed her a set of binoculars she always kept nearby to make sure whoever came near the lighthouse had no hostile intentions.

Edea placed the binoculars in front of her eyes and toyed with the zoom button until she had a good lock on the boat and could make out its passengers. There was a man, unknown to her, behind the wheel. The only other passenger was a woman, who was standing, holding a similar set of binoculars and looking toward the direction of the orphanage. As soon as she saw Edea, she pulled them down and broke into a broad smile, waving at her enthusiastically.

Gasping in surprise, Edea returned the wave. "Yes, Raijin… I think there may be hope for that particular case yet," she said, and set the binoculars down on the table, before breaking into an excited run down the steps leading to the beach.

"Show us, show us, show us, sh— ARGH!"

* * *

_So far, so good_, Quistis thought. Despite the open accusations and the barely contained rage in Atney's words, the rest of the representatives, Galbadia included, remained civil.

The atmosphere in the room was undeniably tense, but there had been no interventions. Quistis glanced at Seifer's direction, trying to gauge what his reaction would be. He looked calm, as if everything that came out of Atney's mouth was what he had been expecting to hear. Come to think of it, he wouldn't have been sent here if he hadn't been thoroughly prepared by his superiors. The man sitting next to him, Caradoc Cole, appeared to be just as collected as Seifer was.

She wondered which one of the two would deliver the speech Galbadia Garden had prepared, once Atney was done presenting his case. Seifer had never been much of a public speaker, but the fact that they had chosen him in the first place was worrying her. The world knew little of Seifer Almasy, other than his holding Vinzer Deling at gunpoint, in what had rapidly become the world's most famous radio transmission. As far as civilians knew, the young man who had stood up to the dictator –and was perhaps seen as a hero by some- had been executed. The Knight, while a force to be reckoned with, was practically eclipsed in the striking presence of the Sorceress; Quistis doubted anyone even knew there had even been a Knight to begin with.

That wasn't the case with the people present in board room. Every single person in there knew exactly who Seifer Almasy was, as well as what he had done. Choosing him as a representative practically screamed marketing ploy.

"What says Galbadia on the matter?" Val Helgon said, addressing the two G-Garden reps.

Immediately, it became painfully obvious that Seifer had been waiting for that very moment with bated breath ever since he had stepped into the room. He didn't look nervous one bit. Quistis had always been somewhat envious of his incredible confidence, but right now she was more worried than jealous.

Rising from his seat slowly, Seifer cleared his throat and began to address the board at large. "First and foremost, I'd like to make it clear that Galbadia is by no means denying their heavy involvement in the Second Sorceress War. Doing so would be ridiculous, and besmirching our reputation even more is the last thing we would want to do. Gentlemen —and ladies-" he added quickly, acknowledging said ladies politely.

_Point one for Galbadia. Addressing the women. Smooth, Almasy, _Quistis thought wryly.

"—I'm not here today to bore you with half-baked promises and lies," he continued. "As everyone in this room already knows, Galbadia has long ago lost the privilege to be fully trusted, but what my colleague and I are here to reclaim is the benefit of the doubt. Things _can_ change for the better; we are living proof of that. Under the command of Headmaster Jonah Meric, we have changed the way our academy operates, and we await the green light to proceed and show the world we can be trusted again."

"I'm wondering, SeeD Almasy," Atney of Trabia interrupted. Seifer regarded him coolly. "How long did it take for Jonah Meric to turn a poster boy for failure into a _respectable,_" He spoke that last word with every ounce of disdain he could muster. "Representative for a Garden tainted to the very bowels with corruption?"

Quistis bit her cheek. Atney's words were harsh, but she had to admit: she had been wondering the very same ever since Seifer had opened his mouth and made her realize he was capable of multi-syllable words that weren't profanities.

The tall blond remained as infuriatingly collected as ever.

"I suggest you ask him yourself," he replied. "I'm afraid I had more important things to do under his tutelage than counting the days and nights I spent there."

"Such as trying –and failing- to convince the world you had been rehabilitated?"

The tall blond didn't even skip a beat. He had obviously been expecting such hostility and was fully prepared to turn it against the offender, whoever that might be. "Oh, _you_ would know of rehabilitation, SeeD Atney," Seifer countered, smirking.

Quistis felt little alarms going off in her head. The familiar glint in those green eyes was never a good sign.

"Tell me, is your son enjoying the splendid facilities in _Hope's Chapel_? I hear the Centraic government pulled out all the stops during renovations."

Quistis should have known the old Seifer was still hiding in there. Underneath all the forced politeness and sophistication, he still knew how to play dirty.

_Hope's Chapel _was nothing more than a rehabilitation center for men and women with drug addictions, and Seifer had obviously done his homework… for once. Not that she could blame him; Trabia would go to every measure possible to ensure Galbadia never got the permit to reinstate their license and if he were to defend the Galbadian side, Seifer would need all the help he could get.

"You _filthy_ little son-of-a-bitch!"

"_Gentlemen!_" Val Helgon thundered, rapping his flat palm on the tabletop loudly.

Seifer simply regarded the infuriated Trabian rep calmly, hints of a sneer dancing on his lips, knowing he had hit a very sensitive spot, one he could now exploit to his benefit.

"I will _not_ have this meeting turn into a juvenile vendetta between Galbadia and Trabia!" Val Helgon growled once Atney had stopped shouting and was being pulled back to his seat by his colleague. "SeeD Atney, it would be wise if you chose your words a bit more carefully from now on. As for you, SeeD Almasy… Get to the point without snide comments, if you please."

"There was nothing 'snide' about my argument, your honor," Seifer insisted. "All I was trying to point out is that, as the case is with SeeD Atney's son," –The Trabian seethed- "Our society believes in second chances, and it would be, in my opinion, _hypocritical_ to make exceptions wherever it suits us best."

"And what about the victims of Trabia Garden?"

Quistis looked up at Selphie who had risen. She was surprised the girl had remained quiet for so long; the issue of Trabia Garden's destruction was one she had always been very sensitive about and Quistis wouldn't think badly of her friend if she never found it in her heart to fully forgive the misdoings of G-Garden under Seifer's command. She could see the carefully hidden pained expression in Selphie's eyes, but the girl stood up proudly nonetheless.

It was the first time Seifer turned to regard his two childhood acquaintances. "Like I said before, Galbadia has no intention of shying away from their mistakes," he began. "As I'm sure you already know, SeeD Tilmitt—"

_SeeD Tilmitt? If I weren't sitting down already, _Quistis trailed off, unable to help but keep being surprised today. Apparently, she wasn't the only one. She was quick to spot the sudden flash of surprise in Selphie's eyes before they shone in determination again.

"Galbadia has been, and will continue to fund Trabia Garden until it is fully restored to its previous state. Money is not an issue," Seifer finished.

"Money never seems to be an issue for Galbadia, SeeD Almasy," spoke Juno Sarutobi, the Esthari representative. "And whereas this now works to Trabia's advantage for the time being, I do believe SeeD Tilmitt spoke of human lives. _Casualties_ rather than any remaining repairs."

Quistis half-expected Seifer to apologize. It certainly wouldn't shock her after everything she'd heard him utter and seen him do today, but just as she had already noticed, the old Seifer Almasy hadn't simply disappeared under a thick layer of formal etiquette. Her suspicion was proven correct seconds later.

Seifer simply shrugged. "It is of no use to wallow over something that can't be changed," he began. "The loss on Trabia's side is… regrettable—"

"_Regrettable?_"

Quistis tightened her grip on Selphie's hand. _Easy… Don't give him the satisfaction of using this to your disadvantage._

"But Galbadia," Seifer went on. "Is willing to put forward an exchange program between the two Gardens exclusively, _aside_ from the already existing one among all Gardens, to fuel T-Garden with as much personnel, cadets and SeeDs as needed. This is no meager offer, and I would advise Trabia to take it."

His tone seemed to imply the unspoken words at the end. _Or else._

Quistis saw Selphie's fists clench. This was clearly not the response she would have preferred, but that was most likely the best she could have gotten out of Seifer Almasy. There was no amount of funding in the world that would compensate for the loss of her friends in Trabia, but from a clearly cynical, practical point of view, Galbadia's offer was more than generous.

"If you think, even for a second," Selphie began, her voice low. "That Trabia's loss will be simply _wiped out_ like th—"

"SeeD Tilmitt, might I remind you that you are representing _Balamb_ on this board…" Val Helgon cut in, eyeing the girl with an arched eyebrow.

Quistis rubbed the bridge of her nose and stifled a sigh. This was getting nowhere. If she didn't intervene, this could go on all morning. All Garden representatives would attack Seifer with everything they had, he would respond to every single one of them with as much ease as he had displayed so far and in the end, they would reach no decision. Either that, or everything would fall apart and the world would only have two fully functional Gardens, one incredibly pissed off Galbadian government and a crippled Garden with no hope of rebirth without the proper support. She grit her teeth, preparing herself mentally for what she was about to do.

_I'm sorry, Selphie…_

"Unless SeeD Almasy has anything else to add," Quistis said, standing up next to her friend. Seifer's jade eyes turned to her. He seemed almost guarded, as if he was expecting to get a piece of her mind, but it did not show beyond his eyes. He gave a nod and extended his palm gently, giving her the okay to continue. "I would like to state that Galbadia has Balamb's approval and support in reinstating their license. Provided that my colleague seconds the motion."

Ringing, pregnant silence spread throughout the room within the blink of an eye.

Seifer seemed to be torn on whether he should smirk triumphantly or gape in shock. Selphie, on the other hand, turned to stare at Quistis as if she had never truly seen her before.

"SeeD Tilmitt, do you second SeeD Trepe's motion?" Val Helgon asked, breaking the silence and looking up at the young brunette.

Selphie continued to stare at Quistis, hurt and bewilderment swimming in her normally vivid eyes. Quistis had come to this meeting with every intention of giving Galbadia a fair chance, but things had taken a drastic turn for the worse with Seifer's arrival. She knew that Selphie and every other representative in there might have warmed up to anyone other than Seifer, but using him had proven to be very effective. The message Galbadia was trying to send was loud and clear: if Jonah Meric could change Seifer Almasy, he could change _anyone_.

"SeeD Tilmitt?"

Quistis shut her eyes for a split second, lowering her gaze from Selphie's eyes. She leaned the slightest bit towards her friend's ear and whispered, "Do it for Trabia. _Please_. Refusing the offer will only make things worse."

"SeeD Tilmitt."

Selphie turned to face Val Helgon, her jaw set. "I second the motion," she said, forcing the words out of her mouth. "Galbadia has Balamb's support."

Quistis fell into her seat unceremoniously, letting out an inaudible sigh. _Thank Hyne…_

Across the room, Seifer directed his gaze at the documents in his hands, the corners of his lips arching up.

* * *

There was a discreet 'Ding!' as the elevator came to a stop and Rinoa stepped out onto the third floor of Balamb Garden, carrying along with her the scent of freshly cooked lunch.

Shizuka's senses, considerably dulled by the unchallenging tasks assigned to her for that day, immediately sprang to life. Perking up, she stretched over her desk to see who was approaching and felt her mouth water at the sight of the brown paper bag in Rinoa's hands. "Lunch break time already?" she asked, checking her watch. By Hyne, was it already one pm?

"Lost track of time?" Rinoa asked with a grin as she approached the other girl's desk. "Glad to see I wasn't the only one…"

"Mmm, will the excitement ever end?" Shizuka drawled, resting her chin on her balled fist. "I should probably be heading over to the cafeteria soon."

"You should," Rinoa agreed, glancing over towards the mahogany door to her left. "Is Squall—?"

"He's inside, yeah," Shizuka said. "Though I should warn you, he's not— Oh for crying out loud," she murmured under her breath for a split second, her eyes falling a little above Rinoa's shoulder. "He's not in the best of moods today," she finished.

Looking over her shoulder and over to the back, Rinoa's eyebrows arched up. "Uhhh… What on earth is Zell doing?"

Shizuka let out an exasperated sigh, following Rinoa's gaze to look at Zell, who was doing what could only be described as a lap-dance from a distance. The highlights of said dance which Zell seemed to enjoy a wee bit too much were apparently shaking his ass in what he clearly thought was an alluring manner and flexing. "Squall asked him to retrieve some documents from Xu's office and he _knows_ I can see him through the window, so…" Shizuka explained.

Rinoa burst into laughter and Shizuka shook her head in amused disbelief. "He spends a little too much time with Irvine, if you ask me," she said, in the midst of Rinoa's gales of laughter.

"D'you think Irvine would ever do that?" the young Sorceress asked, trying to keep a straight face.

"Well, seeing as Irvine would probably actually _strip_, I think Zell's okay for the time being…" Shizuka said, chuckling, not noticing that the mahogany door next to her and Rinoa had just been wrenched open.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU _DOING,_ ZELL?"

Rinoa bit her lip and made a beeline for Squall's office. "I'll handle him," she said to Shizuka, winking. "Hey, d'you think I could have a go at Solitaire while you're down for lunch?"

Shizuka's face paled. "Err… If I'm done when you come out, sure!"

Lunch would have to wait for an hour. Or four…

* * *

Quistis hurried after Selphie out into the hall.

The meeting had just been adjourned and the most pressing matter, that of G-Garden's reinstatement had been accepted almost unanimously. The second Val Helgon stated that the meeting was over, Selphie had hastily grabbed her belongings and had rushed out of the board room, without so much as a glance to Quistis's direction.

"Selphie!" Quistis called after her friend, struggling to keep up; the last thing she wanted was to make a scene. "Selphie, wait!"

The brunette turned around abruptly, her eyes cold. She gave Quistis an impatient glare.

"I'm really sorry, but—"

Selphie held a hand up to interrupt Quistis. "I know you are. I know it's sincere and I know _why_ you did it." Out of the corner of her eye, Selphie watched the Galbadian representatives step out of the board room casually, sharing a handshake. Seifer in particular looked triumphant. The sight made Selphie screw her face in distaste.

"But it doesn't change everything, and it sure as hell doesn't change how I feel about the situation. I'll…" she trailed off, turning back to Quistis. "I'll meet you at the Ragnarok. We're scheduled to leave in a few minutes." And with those words, she turned her heel and left the lobby in a huff.

It was only eleven am and Quistis already felt the need to crawl in bed and not get up for another month at the very least.

Despite the -objectively- positive outcome of the meeting, she couldn't help but feel horrible about the initiative she had taken to support Galbadia first. Her head was swimming with all the possibilities of action she _could_ have taken but didn't, as well as what in Hyne's name was Seifer doing with Galbadia Garden.

Mechanically, her eyes turned and set upon the Man of the Hour. He was conversing with the Esthari representatives, both of whom seemed less hostile now and even waved goodbye once he and Cole began to depart. She heard Seifer telling Cole to meet him outside. It would have made Quistis wonder why he hadn't joined his colleague yet, if he hadn't turned to look at her right after Cole left the lobby.

Holding his coat in one arm regally, he began to take steps towards her, slipping one hand into his uniform pocket. He retrieved what Quistis recognized as a silver, engraved and very expensive-looking cigarette case, all the while approaching her. He came to a stop in front of the woman, withdrawing an unfiltered cigarette and slipping it between his lips. "So speak," he said casually, lighting up.

Quistis almost took a step back. "Excuse me?"

Seifer tilted his head up, exhaling smoke through the slit of his mouth. The sight wouldn't have been out of place in one of the late Vinzer Deling's galas. What on earth had happened to the unkempt boy who used to sneak out of Garden at nights to keep company to the lowest of scum in the Balmish slums? "I saw you and Messenger Girl—" he began.

_Ah… So it's back to the old nicknames off the record._

"-staring at me in there," he went on. "And on your way out. I assumed there was something you were dying to tell me, Trepe. So speak."

Straight and to the point. Cold like a hitman. Not even a rudimentary greeting.

Quistis averted her gaze for a second, folding her arms against her chest. "What are you doing in Galbadia?"

Seifer had clearly expected this. He spread his arms out, smoldering cigarette in one hand. "Isn't it obvious?" he asked, smirking. And it was. The crisp SeeD uniform spoke volumes of what Seifer had been doing with his spare time ever since the end of the war.

"You made it to SeeD…"

Seifer took another drag of smoke in. "Well spotted," he said dryly. "Aren't you going to congratulate me?"

"I suppose I should," Quistis said, after a moment's hesitation. Although the question was burning her insides. _Why choose G-Garden to make it to SeeD? Wasn't Balamb good enough for you? Wasn't _I _good enough for you? I gave you everything you needed to pass that test, and yet you kept screwing it up. And now… you take one step into G-Garden and turn into… _this. "Congratulations." She extended her arm.

Seifer placed the cigarette between his lips to offer her his only free hand. He didn't thank her. "Didn't think I would ever make it, did you?" he asked once the lukewarm handshake was over.

"I'm just surprised you chose G-Garden," Quistis replied truthfully. "They had a bounty on your head and you turned to their side?" she asked in disbelief.

"I guess some people are forgiving," Seifer replied with a casual shrug. He was still smirking.

"Just like that?"

"Just like that."

Quistis pursed her lips, nodding. "Well, just to make things clear," she began, looking up at him coolly. "I do not condone Galbadia's actions, if that's the impression you got today. I simply think this is the only chance Trabia Garden has in standing back up on its feet before it is too late."

"Well, that's mighty valiant of you, Trepe," Seifer replied, his tone mocking. "But I didn't ask for your opinion. Nor do I give a shit."

"Ah, I was wondering when we would be seeing the old Seifer again."

"Old?" Seifer scoffed, chuckling. "There is no old and new Seifer, Trepe. Just an improved second version. Improved under more capable hands, that is," he added, and then paused for added effect, letting the words sink in. "I'll be seeing you around, Instructor," Seifer said with a curt nod of his head, and made his way towards the exit.

All Quistis could do was gape at his departing form. She didn't know what hurt the most; the fact that Seifer was bringing up old wounds again… or the fact that he was right.

* * *

The wind whipped his face mercilessly as the engines of the jet powered up before take-off.

Seifer stepped up the ladder and into the jet marked with Galbadian insignia. His eyes searched for Cole, who was already seated and waiting for take-off. Seifer joined him and took a seat, stretching, glad that this whole charade was over for good. No sooner had he sank into a comfortable position, than the cellphone in his pocket started ringing.

"Yes," he said, answering the call, followed by a yawn.

_"How did it go?"_

"How d'you think?" Seifer replied, grinning. His voice was thick with lassitude, as he began to feel the weight of the whole day creep up on his shoulders. "Victory."

_"Well done. When do we get official clearance to reform?"_

"They didn't say. Van Whatshisface mentioned something about them contacting us ASAP with direct orders," he said.

_"Hmmm… That sounds a little ominous. Still, we got what we needed."_

"Yup."

_"…I trust that your vocabulary was slightly richer when addressing the council?"_

"Relax, I impressed the shit out of them," Seifer drawled, yawning again. "Are we done? I need some sleep."

_"We're done. I'll see you back in Garden." _

Terminating the call, Seifer slipped the cellphone back into his coat pocket and relaxed into his seat, securing his belt for take-off.

He was far too tired to brag about it right now, but he really _had_ done a good job, after all. Not that he'd had any doubts whatsoever… Meric's notes had been meticulous to the point of obsession, and Seifer had been ordered to memorize every single word. Jonah trusted his ability to charm a crowd, but he knew that the council would come at him with everything they had, even something as simple and insignificant as his lack of eloquence or his refusal to wear a uniform.

Unlike the situation back in Balamb Garden, however, Seifer now understood the stakes. His regular clothes were too much of a reminder of things past and made him recognizable, something he needed to avoid at all costs. As long as he was on Galbadia Garden business, he couldn't afford not to be taken seriously, and every little detail counted. Jonah had made certain this very fact had been drilled into his head from Day One and Seifer had kept up his end of the deal. Grudgingly, but he had.

At the very least, everything he'd been put through had paid off in the long run. The expressions on Trepe and Messenger Girl's faces alone once they saw him were enough to make his day.

"Was that Mr. Meric?" Cole asked.

"Mmm-hmmm…" Seifer murmured, his eyes already closed shut. "I let him know I got the job done."

"You mean _we_. _We_ got the job done."

Seifer slipped his eyes open for a split second, smirking. "Yeah… right."

The jet took off unto the warm, morning Centra sky.

* * *

**A/N: **Another chapter down! I hope this isn't going too slow for some of you, but hey, I tend to insert a lot of crap within chapters; that much is true, hehe. Either way, I think that as of chapter 3-4 the pace will quicken somewhat. I'm not entirely sure yet because I do have a crude outline of this story, but it isn't detailed enough for me to know where one stops and where the other begins yet.

And please, before any of you come at me with arguments of the: "Omg, Seifer would NEVER do so-and-so! Sacrilege!" type, rest assured, I already know. In this fic, Seifer is a changed man. And on the other hand, he's not. What I mean is that since this takes place almost three years after the game, it's only natural that some things about him would've changed, be that for better or for worse. However, I do not intend on dumping this 'new' Seifer right into this fic without any explanations whatsoever. I hope that in due time, you'll realize that he hasn't _really_ changed deep inside, but instead has matured a teeny bit, and I promise that you'll see first-hand how this change came to be in the first place.

Till next time!

**04/10/2010 EDIT:**

**- The **_**BEZ dispenser**_** is a clear reference to the real-life PEZ dispenser. **

**- 3****rd**** scene, Quistis muses about the trials that took place post-war and claims of mind-affecting spells.**

**- 5th scene, Quistis mentions how much the world knows about Seifer's involvement in the war.  
**

**- Edea's visitor comes by sea instead of knocking on the door.**


	4. Chapter 3: Persona non Grata

**DISCLAIMER: **I wish I owned a lot of things, and FF8 is one of them, but I don't. Pity.

**A/N: **Real life can be a bitch x.x I hope it won't take nearly as long to update next time. Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 3:** Persona non-Grata

* * *

_Into the flood again  
Same old trip it was back then  
So I made a big mistake  
Try to see it once my way_

_Am I wrong?  
Have I run too far to get home?_

_**- Alice in Chains, 'Would?'**_

_**

* * *

**_

Deeply engrossed into a cheap mystery novel she had brought along for the flight, Quistis sunk into her seat, exhausted.

Her eyelids had stooped low, threatening to slip shut any moment now, but her thoughts kept her awake. Mostly, she was just mad at herself for showing vulnerability to Seifer's caustic remarks, for letting him dig out hurtful memories, memories she had long ago left behind and gotten over. It was far easier to take everything lightly now that she was inside the Ragnarok, miles away from the offender, but when they had been face-to-face, she had found it harder to do so.

Seifer was the personification of everything she had failed to amount to, everything she hadn't been able to handle in the past. Though she had long ago forgone any future ventures into the realm of instructing, it still stung to be reminded that she had, for once in her life, erred in something that concerned her job.

At least the book was marginally distracting.

Quistis pulled her glasses off, rubbing the bridge of her nose as she let out a small yawn. When she slipped her glasses back on, intending to return to her book, she caught Selphie half-glaring at her before hastily looking away the moment their eyes met.

Sighing, Quistis shut her book. "How long are you going to keep doing that?" Selphie had been staring when she thought Quistis wasn't looking for the better part of the last hour.

Selphie looked up sharply, curling up under the blanket covering her and tried to look innocent. "Doing what?"

"Staring at me like that. If you've got something to say, just say it already," Quistis said.

"I said everything I had to say back in Centra."

Exasperated, Quistis sat up a little straighter. "You said you knew why I did what I did. Of _course _you don't have to be pleased about it, but don't take it out on me just because Seifer, being the royal butthead he's always been, pissed you off."

Selphie frowned at Quistis's accusations, but it was more a thoughtful frown than one that betrayed anger. She squirmed in her seat, pouting. "I know," she said eventually in a resigned voice. "Sorry…"

Quistis smiled sympathetically at her friend, removing her glasses for good; she wasn't in the mood for reading any more. "I understand, you know… This matter is personal for you. But something good _will_ come out of this situation. Trabia will be back in business soon. It doesn't mean you have to forget what happened, but you all need to move on."

Selphie nodded, though she didn't appear to be entirely convinced, and hugged her bent knees. Her gaze strayed to the view outside the window and she stayed silent for a little while. "It's just…" She hesitated. "Did you _see_ how casual he was about it?" she said, scowling.

Quistis merely smiled. "Well… Think of the bright side. Galbadia needs a good evaluation from all Gardens to reinstate its license. And we can be as thorough and stingy as we please in _ours_."

* * *

Seifer peeked around the corner of the hallway, searching for any familiar faces.

_No threats in sight… Switching to stealth mode… Commence… NOW!_

With his duffel bag hanging from one shoulder, he dashed down the hall leading to the dormitories. Every step he took forward brought him closer to his goal… closer to heaven… closer to—

"Hey, Seifer!"

The blond came to a screeching halt, shutting his eyes in resignation. _Well… shit._ He turned around wearily, running a hand through his hair, and stared back at the face of Rhys Puck. The man was considerably shorter than Seifer himself, or rather much shorter than the average man. He had vivid, smart brown eyes that forbade anyone to not take him seriously.

"Hey yourself, shrimp."

Save Seifer.

It was a nickname that had elicited many an angry reaction the first few dozens of times it was uttered, but Rhys shrugged it off without the merest bat of an eyelash, betraying for one that he understood all too well it was used in jest, and secondly that it had been worded more than just a few dozen times.

"Jonah wants to see you," said Rhys.

_Figures…_ "Right now?" asked Seifer, not bothering to hide his displeasure. "I was hoping to go grab a shower first." _Or ten._

"You know Jonah," Rhys replied with a gentle sigh. "Has to be right now. Then you'll probably be free for the rest of the weekend."

"Better be," Seifer muttered, scowling. "How come you're not sleeping the whole Trabia deal off?" he asked, scrutinizing the other man. He looked surprisingly refreshed.

"Just woke up," Rhys replied with a satisfied grin, stretching as if to reinforce his point. "Heading to the cafeteria to grab a bite and have a chat with Toni." Toni being one of the more attractive cafeteria employees.

"Mmm-hmmm," Seifer hummed, arching an eyebrow in amusement. "Are you planning on using actual words this time around? I don't think 'Fneghst' counts; she may have misunderstood you the other day."

"Oh look," Rhys said in monotone. "It's funny's second cousin. _Not_ funny."

Grinning, Seifer turned his heel, dragging his feet lazily back into the main hall to make his way over to Jonah's office. The itch of the heavy woolen SeeD uniform had mercifully abandoned his skin once he'd changed in the aircraft that had picked him up from Centra, but a certain amount of grime residue from the Trabia mission that had not been properly washed away was still weighing heavily on his tired body. He needed a shower, mountains of food and an eon of sleep. But the report apparently came first.

Jonah was a slave-driver, simply put, but at least he knew how to run a military institution, Seifer thought.

The man had always given Seifer the distinct impression he was staring at an aged Torama. Jonah's thick tufts of red hair that were once probably intended to be sideburns but had grown wild in the process, gave his cheeks the kind of volume to be found in said animals, and he sometimes matched their temper as well.

Despite his age –which he refused to disclose- his scalp wasn't entirely consumed by gray hairs, and there were still locks of red here and there to betray the original color. He had dark brown eyes that could only be considered ever-watchful, and needed the aid of spectacles only for reading. He wasn't a particularly daunting man size-wise, but underneath all the layers of clothing, hints of a toned body were still visible. A body that was still very capable of giving Seifer an arse-kicking if he didn't follow orders when was expected to.

_The arse-kicking I could live with. But the sermons…_ Somehow, Jonah's words always managed to find a weak spot in Seifer's psyche to manipulate, and it was in fact his little speeches, all the guilt-trips and 'pieces of advice' that made the young SeeD unwilling to just go crawl under his bed and take his punishment for not showing up.

And so he climbed up the stairs, wondering if it was humanly possible to fall asleep while walking.

He came to a stop outside a brand new mahogany door with a sleek, bronze plate that read 'Headmaster' and knocked, yawning.

"Enter."

Seifer wrenched the door open and made a beeline straight for the empty chair that stood in front of the large desk Jonah Meric sat behind. The older man looked at Seifer over the rim of his reading glasses with no small amount of surprise.

"Don't make me salute," Seifer groaned, sinking into the chair. "I'll even say the p-word."

Jonah had half a mind to argue, but made a vague gesture with one hand, accepting defeat. "Protocol is to be followed at all times, but… you've had a rough day. At ease."

_Already am, gramps._ "Didn't Cole hand in his report? He's the one tackling this sh—stuff."

"He did. That's not what I wanted to talk to you about," Jonah said, removing his glasses.

Seifer had spent enough time in the man's company to know that this wasn't a good sign. "I take it I'm not gonna like this," he said, frowning.

"I received a fax from the Garden Council a few minutes ago."

Seifer couldn't help but be surprised at the news. "Already?"

Jonah nodded.

Then his discomfort could only mean that— "They didn't…" Seifer trailed off, grimacing. The meeting had gone well, hadn't it? They had gotten approval to reinstate their license. What could have—?

"We got their approval."

_You old fart… _The blond groaned. "Well that's bloody good news. Don't scare me like that…"

"Depends on one's vantage point," Jonah said, handing Seifer the fax to read for himself.

He took it, somewhat warily, and began to skim through the introductions and over to the main subject. _Pleased to announce… Yadda, yadda, yadda… License reinstated… Barring supervision from—_ He came to a stop. There was a moment of silence, during which Seifer understood what was going to be asked of him in about thirty seconds. Looking up at Jonah, he frowned.

"Oh,_ HELL_ no."

* * *

"Hey, no cheating!" Selphie exclaimed, bending over Rinoa's treadmill and switching the program to a higher scale.

"Selphie, you're killing me…" the young sorceress sighed, as she pulled her hair up into a ponytail and continued to run.

"Did you, or did you _not_ put me in charge of your physical training?" Selphie inquired, arching an eyebrow.

"She wouldn't have," Quistis grunted. The Holo-Dummy in front of her blocked her punch. "If she had known you'd be such a slave-driver," Quistis finished, lodging her knee in between her body and the Holo-Dummy's, aiming for the groin. The newest models came with gender selection as well, she recalled with a grin, and she had picked the male model.

Ever since the second war, the ties between B-Garden and Esthar had become stronger than ever, mostly due to Laguna's attempts to approach Squall in any way possible and aid his cause. As such, all the latest technological advances of Odine's labs were shipped to Garden gil-free. Odine himself had little to do with research on military weapons, specialized uniforms and whatnot, but several other branches of OdiCorp not focusing on para-magic did.

And so, instead of the good old punching bag, cadets now had the chance to practice their mêlée skills on Holo-Dummies: pseudo-androids made purely of energy of just enough density to counter blows and feel the way an actual human body did when hit. Armed with a certain amount of AI as well, the Holo-Dummies came with a controllable scale of power, skill, AI and a great number of martial arts techniques to choose from, including combinations.

In short, as Selphie had put it, they kicked ass.

"Well she's been getting flabby ever since she decided to haul herself up in the Infirmary. So get those buns working!" Selphie insisted. "They won't tighten up by themselves!"

Rinoa let out another sigh, reaching for her water bottle and spraying some on her face.

Quistis swept her forehead with a towel, and bent down to access the Holo-Dummy configuration pad that lay on the floor. "You seem even more hyper than usual," she commented, as she re-programmed it for a new session. "Any particular reason?"

"Nothing fancy; just excited about the party," Selphie said with a broad grin, tucking her hair into a waterproof cap. The yellow cap matched the Chicobo designs on her swimming suit. "You guys are gonna be able to make it, right?"

"Wouldn't miss one of Irvine's parties for the world," Rinoa replied, grinning. "Is he still moping about officially leaving teen-hood behind?"

Selphie let out a giggle as her legs slowly sank into the cool water of the pool. "He's getting over it. I keep reminding him that he's one year closer to buying all the booze he wants on his own. That seems to cheer him up, though it tends to remind him that the drinking age in Galbadia is eighteen, so I gotta find some new material."

"Thankfully," Quistis said as she clicked the _Aikido_ tab on the touch screen. "I won't be the only one of age in a few months," she said. She had turned twenty-one just a little over a month ago and being the first in the group to be of legal age, she had been unanimously named _The Booze-Meister_. The title had been Zell's idea.

"We can still get our own beer, _grandma_," Selphie teased, kicking off from the edge of the pool and spiraling forward into the water in perfect breaststroke. "Just – not – the – hardcore – stuff," she added in between pauses for breath.

"And you'd _think_ that would be enough…" Quistis trailed off, but there was a grin on her face even as she said those words. She pressed _Execute_ on the touch pad and stood back up, stretching. The Holo-Dummy sprang up again, ready to engage in battle.

Rinoa pressed the 'Stop' button on her treadmill, coming to a halt and reaching for her towel to wipe off the condensation on her forehead. She leaned against the machine, watching Quistis battle the Holo-Dummy for a few seconds before she spoke. "Any chance we'll be seeing Instructor Gray on Sunday?" she asked, referring to the date of Irvine's party.

A muscle tightened on Quistis's jaw, but she didn't lose her concentration. She had a feeling she knew exactly where this was going and she didn't like it one bit. "Not really. Would be a bit of a stretch to drag him back here just for one night, wouldn't it?"

Rinoa nodded absent-mindedly, staring at her shoes. "So… it's really over then?"

"Seems like it," Quistis said, landing a particularly vicious kick on the dummy's chest.

"No chance you two will be making up in the near future?"

"I don't have any plans whatsoever to move to Esthar, so no."

"Speaking of which," Rinoa said, going in for the kill. "I got a call from _Zone_ today." It couldn't have been plainer she had been working her way up to this very question.

Quistis didn't bother turning around, groaning internally. _There we go again…_ "I thought we were talking about _Esthar_," she grunted.

"Well… seeing as he _lives_ there," Rinoa said, shrugging. "He asked about you."

"Uh-huh…"

"Asked how you were doing."

"Mm-hmmm."

"Unless I misunderstood, he was trying to find out if you had any plans for next time we disembark there."

"That might not be for weeks upon weeks," Quistis said, dodging a blow.

"He can be patient," Rinoa said, grinning.

"And I could be busy."

Having just returned from her first lap, Selphie's head re-emerged by the side of the pool again. "I think _someone's_ trying to avoid a date…" she said.

Quistis had to stop for a second and appreciate Selphie's apparently bionic ears that were able to follow the conversation even while she was swimming.

Having momentarily forgotten that there was a Holo-Dummy in front of her with her name written all over its knuckles, Quistis turned around, exasperated. "Look, Rinoa. I know he's your friend an—OW!"

Knocked down on the ground, Quistis grit her teeth and grabbed hold of the Holo-Dummy's leg. It had been about to kick her, but she held it tight and elbowed it hard on the knee-pit. If the Holo-Dummy had been given a voice, it would've been screaming in pain right about now.

Reaching over to the pad, Quistis punched the _Abort_ button, sitting down on the floor of the gym and panting as the dummy got swept back into the generator grid. "I never agreed to go on a date with Zone," Quistis said, rubbing her sore cheekbone. "And I'd appreciate it if you didn't do anything to get his hopes up. He's really sweet and I love our conversations when we spend time in Esthar, but that's as far as it can ever go."

Rinoa faked a casual shrug and returned to her jogging, but Quistis could see the disappointment in her eyes. She had been trying to set them up for a long time, and Selphie hadn't been doing much to help change her mind.

"I'm taking a shower," Quistis said, standing back up on her feet and making her way toward the locker rooms. "Gotta get ready for the meting soon."

She could feel, rather than see the two pairs of eyes on her back as she left the gym. She wasn't usually one to avoid a conversation by retreating, but she didn't have the patience to deal with the sort of romantic entanglements Selphie and Rinoa tried to weave her into.

Taking the hint, her two friends left the gym soon afterwards, letting her shower in peace.

* * *

"Zuka, keep your voice down!"

"Enough is enough, Zell!" Shizuka hissed, moving around the oval table of Balamb Garden's conference room, placing cups and saucers in front of every seat crankily. "I spent the greatest part of the last two hours talking on the phone, arguing with a company that goes by the name of _'McMuffin'_ about the shipment of _cookies_ that were supposed to arrive in time for today's meeting."

Zell made a truly valiant effort not to laugh. "That's a… productive… tas—"

"I have the kind of job a _monkey_ could pull off, Zell!" Shizuka snapped. "I make coffee and order pastries! You _know _I'm capable of a lot more than _that_!"

Zell forced a not-so-convincing grin on his lips. "You know, I always reckoned monkeys are highly under—"

"Oh, don't you _dare_ try to make a joke out of this," Shizuka snarled, all but setting the pastry platter down gently. "I'm talking to him. _Today_. No more Mrs. Nice Librarian."

"But you know what he's like," Zell said with a cringe. "If you push him too hard he'll get pissed off and huffy and all… Squallish and he won't even notice everything you've done so far."

Shizuka let out an exasperated sigh. "Well, what the hell am I supposed to do then?"

Zell noticed the change of tone in her voice from anger to defeat and saw this as a good sign to approach her and place his hands on her shoulders for a comforting rub. "Keep surprising him. He's bound to start noticing. And if he doesn't, I'll keep on throwing subtle hints."

"Subtle is not exactly in your vocabulary, Zell," Shizuka said only half-amused, rubbing her sore temples. "I appreciate it, I really do, but I think I need to do this on my won."

"You _are_," Zell insisted. "I'm just… giving you advice on how to proceed," he added with a grin.

Shizuka looked up from her shoulder at him with a smirk and patted his face gently. "Don't get cheeky with me," she said. Zell grinned back, confident that he had won this battle, and reached down for the plate. But before his hand could close around a deliciously golden-brown, sugary donut, Shizuka slapped it away. "You already got your stash," she said. "Those are for the meeting."

"Awwwww…"

"You and that bottomless pit of a stomach," Shizuka said with a chuckle, going back to setting up the table. "At the rate your mother already feeds you, you'd think—" she began, but came to an abrupt halt, probably realizing only too late the mistake she'd just made.

"Speaking of my mother…" Zell trailed off, and stepped closer to her.

"Yes?"

"She's been asking me when we'll get around to visiting her for lunch," Zell said. "And since we're stationed in Balamb…"

While Zell knew that meeting a significant other's parents was a big deal, Shizuka's continued excuses and requests for a raincheck were starting to worry him. It wasn't often that he got to see his mother and he would've liked for her to meet Shizuka at _some_ point.

"Well, ummm…" she began, stalling for time and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Depends on how much work Squall assigns to me. You know how it is with paperwork…"

"Actually, I don't."

"Well, I'll be lucky if I can get a moment to myself!" Shizuka said, her back still facing Zell. "There's orders to take care of, mission forms to fill in, applications to go over…"

"Are you sure you're not just avoiding this?"

"…Training center is absolutely _teeming_ with T-Rex cubs and I have to remind Squall that-"

"Zuka…"

"…Trepie situation is just getting ridiculous. Did you know they didn't ask for authorization for their last meeting? I swear, sometimes I feel like I'm the only one—"

"Just forget about it," Zell said in resignation.

Things in their relationship tended to move slowly from the get-go and it looked like the trend wasn't going to change any time soon. It had taken him months upon months to finally ask her out and even longer for her to come out of her shell. They had been dating for a little over a year now, and he still felt like he didn't know her at times. He was happy to see she was far less shy around him than she had once been, but the fact that she had yet to truly open up to him was alarming.

"—who cares around here. Hey Selphie!" Shizuka exclaimed. She warmly greeted Selphie, who had just walked into the conference room alongside Irvine.

"Heya," Selphie greeted back, looking somewhat puzzled at the enthusiastic greeting. "We're the first ones here?"

"Yup!" Shizuka said, still grinning broadly, now slipping the documents containing the meeting's subjects along the table. "Take a seat; I reckon the others won't be long."

"You're awfully cheerful today," Irvine pointed out, accustomed to Shizuka's frequently moody behavior.

"She just managed to avoid yet another conversation—" Zell began, but was quickly silenced with a donut Shizuka quickly shoved into his open mouth.

Her faux-cheerfulness diminishing, she made her way over to the door crankily, where the rest of the attendees had already arrived, and pushed a novel-sized report in Squall's unsuspecting arms. "The T-Rexaurs are running amuck," she said briskly. "Either we seriously consider spraying them or we start giving out cubs as pets. I'm told they're not cuddly. Have fun reading it," she finished and stormed out of the room.

Her departure was followed by a fair amount of blinking and puzzled stares. Squall glanced down at the report in his arms. "…cubs?"

"November is T-Rexaur mating season," Irvine explained. "What?" he said when Rinoa stared at him in disbelief. "I watch _International Geographic_."

Zell guessed everyone was about as eager to discuss T-Rex mating habits as he was, judging from their expressions when they all took their seats. He hadn't noticed it at first, but suddenly realized their line-up today was a little different. Their usual number was six; Squall, Quistis, Irvine, Selphie, himself and Xu. Cid also joined them whenever he was on the premises, which lately, was not so often. Rinoa never attended these meetings since she wasn't a SeeD, but she was present today.

Zell had to wonder why; the only other times she had attended, special circumstances had been involved. What could be so important that warranted her presence?

And where was Quistis? It wasn't like her to be late.

Apparently mirroring his own thoughts, Squall looked up from the sheaf of papers in his hands, frowning. "Where's Quistis?" he asked.

* * *

As soon as she heard Selphie and Rinoa leaving the locker rooms, Quistis stepped outside, still clad in her exercise outfit.

With all the talk of past relationships and Rinoa's plans to set her up, she didn't feel like she had gotten the workout she needed. There was still one hour left till the meeting, giving her plenty of time to have a private workout session and shower before going up to the bridge. The gym was packed by now, so she decided to head for the training center instead.

The first few Grats proved to be distraction enough, as well as an outlet for her frustration, but only for a mere few couple of minutes. It wasn't long before her thoughts returned to her non-existent love life.

_Great, _she groaned. _If Grats won't do it, I'd better pray for a T-Rex if I'm hoping to get a decent fight._

Quistis preferred to keep her private matters exactly that; private. In light of the two new friendships the war had brought her, however, she'd been forced to change her tactics somewhat. She refused to disclose far too personal details, but she let her friends have an inkling of what went on in her life; just enough to keep them satisfied.

Her short-lived romance with former Instructor Gray had been one such incident. The man had been sweet and polite to her and had had a fair amount of appeal in the bedroom. It had been a very pleasant break from reality while it had lasted, but he was offered a much better position in the soon-to-be-made Esthar Garden. He had suggested she follow him, but Quistis, aside from having too many ties to keep her in Balamb, just hadn't been ready for such a commitment. As such, they had parted ways amicably and had made a promise to keep in touch every now and then.

Quistis had never been able to handle small changes in her daily routine very well, and finding herself with large chunks of free time daily, she threw herself back into her work in an attempt to slowly get back into her old rhythm. Selphie and Rinoa had interpreted that as minor depression and had rushed in to cure the alleged heartache with a new romantic interest.

Enter Zone.

It all started just a few months after the end of the War… After the first haze of victory had cleared out, the sextet had found themselves swamped with invitations to anything, from galas to post-war celebrations that were held to honor them. It had been a very bizarre situation, to bounce from brutal trials and the people's skepticism to cocktail parties and a sea of sponsorship offers.

Esthar's ceremony had been the most extravagant one. Zone and Watts had attended, along with the rest of the White SeeDs who had disembarked to join the festivities and reunite with Ellone briefly. Quistis hadn't gotten a chance to see Zone ever since their escape from Timber, where he'd given up his ticket for her. When they had come across the White SeeD ship, she had no idea the ex-anarchists from Timber would have been aboard and she hadn't been on the group Squall had selected to embark on the ship. Her first chance to thank him properly without the pressure of time and circumstances had been during that very ceremony.

…

_"Uhh… I'm not sure if you remember me, Mr. Zone—"_

_"Mr. Zone?" He laughed. "That's a good one! Just Zone is fine. You're Quistis, right?"_

_"Yes. You gave me your train ticket back in Timber. I never got a chance to thank you for what you did. If it hadn't been for you—"_

_"Oh, c'mon… Don't mention it…" A blush. "You needed the ticket more than I did. I er… I'm used to making hasty retreats." Nervous laughter. _

_She couldn't help it; she laughed along. "Well, it doesn't matter. You could have used the ticket for yourself, but you gave it to a complete stranger instead. Very few people would have done something so selfless. Thank you."_

_"Ahhh… Well… It wasn't really… I mean—"_

_"Rinoa mentioned that… you are a fan of a certain magazine. I thought you might like this. I'm sorry I couldn't get anything better, but I didn't have much time. I'm useless with shopping as it is and I hardly know Esthar's market. I uh… I understand this is a… uhh… collector's edition. For the twenty five year anniversary since the magazine's inception." _

_The humiliation of picking that up from a magazine stand would have normally driven her away, but it was the least she could do for someone who may have very well saved her life. The ten or so scantily clad, well-endowed women on the golden cover of 'Girl Next door' seemed to giggle at her discomfort._

_Not to mention Zone's._

_"Oh… Rinoa said— she er… wow… I er… that's really nice… Good gift. I mean—Not that I'm that big a fan… I just… erm… thanks. Don't really— I mean… I don't use it _that_ way. Just… Uh… Not that there's anything wrong with me… physically that is… but— OW!"_

_"Goodness, are you alright?"_

_"Yeah… just… my stomach…" _

…

Ever since that rather awkward encounter, every time Garden found its way over to Esthar, Quistis would always reserve a warm smile and cheery conversation for him whenever possible. And although she had never intended to send him mixed signals, it appeared that somewhere along the way Zone had gotten the wrong impression about her sentiments, something Rinoa was ecstatic about.

Zone was sweet, alright, and his geekiness was nothing short of endearing, but to put it simply… he was a child. A very adorable one, for sure, but a child nonetheless.

It wasn't until she found herself back to her starting point that Quistis realized she had probably just gone through the entire Grat population of the training center. Either that, or the remaining few were hiding in the bushes.

_How long have I been training?_ Quistis wondered, and checked her watch. Forty minutes had gone by since Selphie and Rinoa had left.

_A pity. All that frustration and not a worthy target on sight_, she mused, and decided to head back to her dorm. No sooner had she taken the first step, than her boot slipped on something and she fell, back-first, onto hard ground.

She was about to curse her own clumsiness when she noticed that the soil below her was unusually smooth and cold. She wasn't sure what she had expected to find, but her jaw fell upon seeing that she was now lying on a thick circle of ice.

_What the...?_

_

* * *

_

Squall stared at the view of the blue sky outside wistfully. Gone were the days when he was a mere SeeD, caring about nothing but the success of his missions.

As a Commander, he was forced to attend meetings such as the one today, deliberating on the most mind-numbing matters possible. He couldn't entirely blame Irvine for being angry he had missed a Sphere game for this.

When Quistis had shown up fifteen minutes in, looking disheveled and jittery, Squall was a little ashamed to admit he'd been hoping it was something serious. Quistis had assured them all she was fine, just upset she had lost track of time and had arrived late, much to his disappointment. He didn't wish any harm upon his friend, but even the slightest issue would've made this day a little more tolerable.

Then again, the small piece of news he would be delivering by the end of the meeting was bound to make the upcoming weeks, if not months, far more interesting.

_"Why so quiet?"_

Squall suddenly jolted up on his seat, startled. When he realized it had been Rinoa's voice in his head he relaxed again, letting the report he was holding fall on the table with a gentle thud. _"We haven't had anything interesting on our plates for ages now. I don't have anything to add to this conversation."_

_"That's not what you told me earlier on…"_

_"Well…"_ Squall thought, his expression clouding. _"I'd best leave that one for last."_

_"You were very cryptic about it," _Rinoa pressed on. _"You can't even give _me_ details?"_

_I would, but you're not gonna like what you hear,_ he thought grimly, realizing his error only too late.

_"…You do realize I can hear your thoughts, right?"_

_"Look, I'm sorry, but you'll understand soon enough why I didn't want to give any further details. It's not exactly pleasant conversation."_

_"OK, now you're starting to scare me."_

"…while I'm sure that training T-Rex cubs would be a delight to anyone who ventured it," Quistis cut Selphie's suggestion short. "I think I'll leave this one up to Squall."

"What?" Squall said, only too happy to jump on the opportunity to escape the mental conversation with Rinoa. "Oh! Sure, yeah. Whatever."

_"Squall?"_

Quistis arched a blonde eyebrow. "Did you even hear what I just said?" she asked.

"Of course I did; I'll take care of it," Squall hurried to say. In truth, he had no idea what was being discussed right now, but it was probably nothing important anyway.

_"You'd rather get in the middle of two dinosaurs doing it than tell me what's going on?"_

"I'll go check it out first thing in the morning—"

_"Squall!"_

"Shouldn't be a hassle—"

_"SQUALL!"_

"STOP IT!" Squall finally burst out, turning every head in the room to his direction.

"Uhh… You okay, man?" Zell asked, putting his muffin down in a move that made Squall aware of just how concerned he was over his sanity.

"I'm fine," Squall said, rubbing his forehead and avoiding Rinoa's murderous gaze. "I uhhh… Are we done here? Because there's something that's not on the notes I wanted to discuss."

"I guess," Xu said with a shrug. "Unless you prefer baby blue over turquoise or navy for uniforms," she added with a smirk.

"No, either is fine," Squall said, missing the humor in Xu's suggestion. "Alright then, since we're done with everything else…" he trailed off, mustering the courage to say what he had to say without bothering to hide his displeasure. "I have an announcement to make."

"Go on…?" Selphie said.

"As you all know, Quistis and Selphie were in Centra earlier today," Squall began. "They were discussing the matter of reinstating G-Garden's license to function."

"Yeah, so…?" Zell said.

"I received a fax from Van Helgon's assistant a couple of hours ago," Squall went on. "Notifying me about his decision."

It didn't escape Squall's notice that Quistis's eyes darted over to Selphie. He could see the younger girl fidget in her seat, staring at him stonily.

"Well?" Xu asked impatiently. "Did we bury the scumbags?"

"It wouldn't appear so," Squall replied, glancing furtively at Quistis. The blonde was suddenly very interested in her so far untouched coffee. "Apparently Balamb's representatives gave their consent to put Galbadia back to business."

"They did?" Zell asked incredulously. "I mean—We did?"

"Quisty did," Selphie said.

Four heads turned sharply to the woman's direction. "Thank you for keeping it on the down-low," Quistis said through gritted teeth. "And yes," she added, looking at everyone defiantly. "I did. What of it?"

"Well… Why?" Rinoa asked timidly. Her face had gone awfully white as if she had an inkling of what was about to follow.

"Just because a few people from Galbadia have bad judgment doesn't mean their Garden should shut down," Quistis replied. "I thought everyone had put the war behind them by now and if they haven't… well… they should."

"Easy for you to say…" Selphie muttered under her breath.

"Look, Selphie, enough is enough!" Quistis said, irritated. "I've done _nothing_ to deserve your disapproval and for Hyne's sake, doesn't everyone deserve a second chance?"

"I think Seifer Almasy has had more than his fair share of second chances," Selphie snapped back.

"Plus one," Squall said quietly in the background, but his voice wasn't lost on any pair of ears.

"Come again?" Irvine asked.

"I said, plus one," Squall repeated, looking up from the document in his hand. "Galbadia has been granted clemency. We hold the right to supervise them as the only functional Garden for as long as we please and they hold the right to send any representative they see fit during the preliminary investigation."

Silence spread in the room as Squall's previous words began to make sense.

"Three guesses who they chose," he said, slipping the paper onto the desk for everyone to see.

* * *

"This won't be permanent."

"I don't care."

"You'll barely spend two days per week there and then return to G-Garden."

"Don't care."

"Only until the evaluation period is over."

"No. Iie. Non. Oh—"

"ENOUGH."

A loud bump suddenly made Seifer jerk on his seat and he turned to stare at Jonah. The older man had stood up from his seat and had brought his palm down on the desk so fast and so hard that Seifer could've sworn he heard the wood underneath let out a creak in protest.

"This is an _order_ from your superior. I thought I was dealing with an adult _soldier_, not a petulant child of four," Jonah said, and his tone was enough to make Seifer actually _feel_ four.

"You don't get it," Seifer said, after he'd regained his composure, shaking his head. "I'm not welcome there. The fact alone that _I_ will be going will make everything worse."

"You're the only one from our ranks who has spent enough time there to know everyone that matters."

"Correction; I'm the only one who's spent enough time there to have pissed off everyone that matters," said Seifer earnestly.

"If you're careful about what you say or do, then there won't be a problem," Jonah insisted. "Balamb has no choice but to follow the council's orders on this matter and we still reserve the right to send the representative we deem worthy. They have no right to veto us, so sooner or later, they'll have to accept you."

"Later, I'll bet," Seifer muttered under his breath.

"Well, then this should be a fine opportunity to show if you're worth the gil and the trouble," Jonah said, taking his seat again.

* * *

_Thirty nine._

_Forty._

_Forty one._

She was different now.

It wasn't the war that had changed her. It had changed them all, but the transformation within her had begun earlier on.

_Forty two._

_Forty three._

It had been right after he pulled her out of Adel, her clothes soaked in blood, eyes rolled back into their sockets. Before time compression had commenced, her breathing became more stable and her eyes returned back to normal. He'd smiled at her then, briefly, and she'd smiled back. And then he saw it. A strange little flicker in her eyes that he didn't have time to process before the floor gave in and all time merged into one liquid mass.

_Forty four._

Afterwards, she'd been the same. Same old Rinoa. All smiles and optimism and bright brown eyes.

Except for that strange flicker.

He'd seen it again. Mostly at nights.

It was during the nights that she let herself go and the change was more apparent than ever.

_Forty five._

She always brushed her hair forty six times. He could hear her. They could hear each other's thoughts now. The Sorceress-Knight connection.

_Forty six…_

_Forty six… and two,_ Squall thought, mirroring what Rinoa had just said in her own thoughts as well.

Rinoa didn't perform those last two brushstrokes she always mentioned. She never did.

She turned to look at him over her shoulder, the mirror on the wall opposite his bed forgotten for the time being. She smiled.

Squall smiled back at her, already under the covers and waiting for her to join him. "Forty six and two?" he asked.

"Forty six and two," Rinoa repeated, smiling still, and dropped her brush on Squall's desk. She made her way over to the bed and crawled under the covers, reemerging only to wrap her arms around Squall's midsection and place her head on his chest. She closed her eyes and sighed gently.

"Why is it always forty six?" Squall asked, running his fingers through her hair. It seemed like a silly question to ask, why she brushed her hair only that exact amount of times, but he wanted to know. Something about it bugged him tough he couldn't tell what it was or why it bothered him.

Rinoa shrugged. "Who knows?" she said. Sleep was already beginning to claim her.

"Why not add the last two strokes?" Squall asked, unsatisfied with her reply.

"Mmmm, not yet," Rinoa murmured sleepily. "Right now it's chaos. The in-between. But the wind of change is already blowing. Perhaps soon. I can add them on the third."

When she spoke like that she frightened him. Was it the Sorceress in her that made her say those things, and why? What did it all mean? Was it a curse? Had Adel and Ultimecia once been normal women, but were eventually driven into becoming monsters by something they couldn't control? Had Matron suffered that fate as well? Would Rinoa?

Squall looked at her, his grip around her shoulders tightening as if she'd slip away any moment now if he let go. She didn't budge, just sighed again, softly. When he looked at her, he only saw _her_. Rinoa. The girl he'd fallen in love with.

"I love you, too," Rinoa whispered suddenly. "But what you're doing is cheating."

Squall laughed. He thought she'd already fallen asleep, but apparently she could still hear his thoughts. Had she heard everything else, too? He held his breath for a moment, waiting to hear her suddenly say or think 'Yes', but she didn't. "Sorry," he said, chuckling. "But it still counts, doesn't it?"

"Mmmm, no," Rinoa said, giggling. "I want the real deal."

"Can I write it?"

"You hate writing letters."

"It could be a card."

Rinoa arched an eyebrow at that.

"…along with some flowers?" Squall added, grinning.

"Mmmmmmmmaybe… What kind of flowers?"

"Uhhh… how's roses?"

Rinoa laughed softly and hugged Squall tighter. "Can they be blue?" she asked in a faint whisper.

Squall let out a sound between a scoff and laughter. "Blue?" he repeated. "How could they be blue?" he asked, tucking a lock of hair behind Rinoa's ear.

But she was already fast asleep and didn't answer.

_Forty six and two… are just ahead of me._

_

* * *

_

Quistis sat on a squishy sofa in the Instructors' lounge, calmly sipping her morning coffee. The sound of the radio on the back of the room kept her marginally interested as she listened to the news.

_"…returning from his brief journey in Northern Trabia. Upon his arrival, High Priest Rachmanov was greeted warmly by members of the clergy and the government."_

She had long ago been stripped of her Instructor's privileges, but the lounge was traditionally used by anyone and everyone within the walls of Garden who was ranked as an officer. Plus, they had the best coffee-maker.

It could've been a silent, peaceful morning before the storm of Seifer's imminent arrival, but Selphie had different plans.

"Are you kidding me?" she exclaimed at the man in overalls standing before her. "I've seen blocks of _butter_ that looked sturdier than this. I specifically requested Galbadian marble and that's certainly not it."

Quistis had no idea what on earth they needed a fireplace for since there was already more than enough heating for the whole Garden, but it was one of the numerous renovations Selphie had taken up on herself recently.

_"…stated he was very pleased with the progress made between the two countries and looks forward to visiting their premises again in the future."_

As soon as she was done dealing with the new installment in the Instructors' lounge, Selphie made her way over to the couch and slipped right next to Quistis, helping herself to some coffee. "He was cute," she commented, grinning.

"Was he?" Quistis asked, somewhat amused.

"If I wasn't so pissed off at the company he works for I might've flirted a bit," Selphie replied.

"What about Irvine?" Quistis asked with an arch of her eyebrows.

"Irvine?" Selphie said. "Irvine's my _'It's complicated'_ on Facejournal," she added with a giggle. "You know what he's like. We're together alright, but it can't be official or he'll get spooked out. So I'm technically a free woman. I can use my feminine wiles if I feel like it," she told Quistis with a playful wink.

_"Over to Xanna for the live interview at the airport." _

The blonde smiled, shaking her head. "I'm still in awe of how you manage to pretty much run this place on your own," she commented. "The Festival committee, the PR, the renovations… Aren't you constantly exhausted?"

"Irvine's hooked me up on that new energy drink. That blue stuff, whatever it's called," Selphie replied unflinchingly. "I dunno what the hell they put in that thing, but it _works_."

Quistis laughed. "I think I'd much rather take whatever Zell's taking."

Selphie laughed along, sipping some coffee. "I wouldn't," she replied. "Must be like adrenaline forced into your bloodstream constantly. Whew!"

Smiling, Quistis took another sip and licked her lips slowly, before turning to look at Selphie. "Look… Selphie. I—"

"Don't," Selphie cut her off. "I know what you're gonna say and it's mostly my fault," she said. "I treated you like crap after the whole Centra deal and you didn't deserve it. I guess it just upset me much more than I thought it would, but it would've happened even if you hadn't said anything in that meeting. I hear Meric is pretty well-connected. They had the approval in the bag."

It was already three days after that awkward meeting in the bridge, and things had been forcibly calm between them. Quistis had been under the impression that Selphie kept coming up with excuses not to talk about it, and as for Rinoa…

"You're not the only one I managed to upset," Quistis said gloomily. "Did you see the look on Rinoa's face?" she asked, cringing. "She blanched. She didn't even say a word after we called it a night."

"Can you blame her?" Selphie asked, grimacing as well. "Oh no, not about you!" she hurried to add, seeing the guilty look on Quistis's face. "I meant about Seifer. The guy practically sacrificed her to Adel. I don't think she'll be forgetting that any time soon. Would you?"

"No, I guess not," Quistis muttered, running a finger over the handle of her cup absent-mindedly. She fell silent for a few minutes.

_"…Nothing pleases Hyne more than seeing his children working together in harmony for the greater good."_

"How do you feel about him?" she asked after a little while. "Coming back?"

"Curious," Selphie replied honestly. When Quistis looked at her quizzically, she added, "Yeah, wondering whether my nunchacks are asshole-shaped in girth and actually hoping they're a little wider."

"Selphie!" Quistis exclaimed, bursting into laughter. It wasn't very often that Selphie used the stronger curse words, but when she did, the result was more than often imaginative.

"Seriously though?" Selphie asked, looking a little more solemn now. "I just hope we see as little of him as possible. Isn't it a little fishy, how he got away with no charges at all?"

"I've been wondering that myself," Quistis added, nodding. The only person who knew anything about what had happened during Seifer's trial was Squall, but he'd never said a word about it. "I hinted at it after the meeting, but got no decent response."

"Hinted it? To whom?"

"Seifer."

Selphie's eyes widened considerably. "You spoke to him?"

Quistis nodded. "It was after you left," she explained, giving Selphie all the details of their conversation.

"That's rich," Selphie said after Quistis was done narrating. "Wondering why we were staring at him? It's 'cause you weren't in cuffs, jackass!"

"To be perfectly honest, I was more shocked by the fact that Seifer knows how to speak in public. With words. Fancy ones," Quistis said.

"How long is the preliminary investigation gonna last?" Selphie asked.

"No idea," Quistis replied with a shrug. "All I know is that we're supposed to go over negotiations with Seifer and anyone else Galbadia might send for a little while, and once everything is decided, they're given the clearance to re-open while we send a few supervisors over to make sure it's all running smoothly."

"Well then, we'd better make sure the negotiations go fast," Selphie said. "I don't like this."

"Me neither," Quistis concurred.

"And he's coming today?"

Quistis nodded.

"Well then," Selphie said, getting up. "I think I'll go have a word with Xu. I have a feeling she might want to take the responsibility of forming a welcoming committee for our old friend."

Quistis grinned, sinking back into the couch after Selphie got up. The gentle voice of Hynean High Priest Sethior Rachmanov filled the silent room.

_"…as Esthar's spiritual leader, it is my duty to work alongside President Loire to ensure our nation's well-being."_

"Turn that up on your way out," Quistis told Selphie, smiling serenely.

* * *

The Galbadian aircraft began to descend.

Seifer stared at the view outside the window. The blue sky soon turned misty as they entered the clouds, and it wasn't long before he could make out the familiar valleys and beaches of Balamb. An odd sense of nostalgia filled the pit of his stomach, but he told himself it was merely nerves. Nerves at the thought of seeing the people he grew up with a good two years after they'd last crossed paths. Things had been… different then. But Jonah had been preparing him for this very moment ever since they'd first met.

Agreeing to go through what was undeniably the epitome of putting one's head in the wolf's mouth hadn't been easy.

There was no amount of money that would've made him agree, and Jonah hadn't offered any extra to begin with. Once again, he'd managed to convince Seifer with words alone. He was beginning to feel a little uneasy of the mount of influence that man had over him, even more so because Seifer hadn't exactly been known for his obedience to orders in the past. He hated to admit it, but Jonah had managed to awaken the soldier in him, a feat many people could claim they had ventured in the past, but only one had eventually succeeded.

When pushing his pride aside, Seifer could recognize that he had found the kind of leader he could commit to in Jonah Meric's face. And commit he had. Though Jonah himself had shown no small amount of trust and had put no small amount of effort in getting Seifer cleared of all charges post-war.

"SeeD Almasy, sir, we will be landing in five minutes."

Turning to look at the pilot, Seifer nodded curtly and buckled his seatbelt. The aircraft continued to descend, and Balamb Garden soon came in sight. He'd left the Garden stationed, had seen it mobile during times of war and that was pretty much the last of it he'd laid eyes upon aside from one small glimpse during his stay in Balamb. And there it was again, docked upon the very same valley it had been before it had first risen off the ground. _How fitting…_

The aircraft touched the roof of Balamb Garden and Seifer took a deep breath in. _Here we go…_

He shouldered his duffel bag, gave the pilot a sharp nod in reciprocation of a salute and stepped outside.

The gales of wind whipped at his hair and face and he squinted at the sun, walking down the stairs of the aircraft. But there he came into a stop. He hadn't expected to be welcomed with open arms, per se, but this was… interesting.

He counted more than ten SeeDs all lined up at the ready and he was willing to bet they weren't there to make him feel at home. His worst possible nightmare came to life when Xu Chang stepped up in front of him, looking happier than he'd ever seen her.

"Almasy," she said, saluting him.

The salute itself was suspicious enough, but Seifer indulged her by returning it after he'd scrutinized her warily long enough. "Chang."

"Glad to see you back," she said curtly, and before he had time to respond, she added, "Boys… Search him," with a sardonic grin.

_Nice try, dyke… _If she really thought she could intimidate him with an order like this, she was gravely mistaken. "Oh, do be gentle," he said, dropping his duffel bag as the SeeDs advanced on him. "I've been saving myself for someone special."

Xu sat back on the ledge, enjoying the show as ten men began to search Seifer, making sure to invade a lot of personal space if need be, as per her orders, he was certain. Folding her arms in front of her chest, she continued to grin. "Want me to do it myself, Almasy?"

"As much as I appreciate the offer," Seifer began, keeping an eye on a certain SeeD who seemed to be getting a little too close for comfort. "Your hands on me equals craptastic amounts of erectile dysfunction. And I'm still far too young for that. Not to mention the fact you're was about as gentle as a pack of Wendigos."

Xu stretched her legs lazily. "Boys… I think a second round is in order. Just to be safe."

…_Bitch._

The second time around, it took longer for the SeeDs to complete their search. Xu was milking the situation for all it was worth, and Seifer knew she wouldn't hesitate to order a third round should he mouth off again.

More because he was anxious to get this over with, rather than fearing pissing her off, he remained quiet.

When she was satisfied all was clear, Xu pulled her men back. They fell into formation and led the group back into the construct of Balamb Garden. Seifer walked alongside Xu. Behind them, two SeeDs brought the rear, watching his every move.

"So… mind explaining to me why you're not dead and or rotting in jail, Almasy?" Xu asked, in a tone that anyone else would've read as casual conversation.

Seifer turned to look at Xu, still at a daze at how fast the proceedings were taking place.

_They must be trying to keep my visit as incognito as possible, _he thought.

"Do you really think I deserve such cruel and unjust punishment?" he asked.

"No, actually. If it were me, I'd have sentenced you to being smacked on the balls with a frying pan for all eternity. Would've done it myself if they'd given me the honor," Xu replied. "But I digress… Why are you allowed to walk out in the open?"

Seifer grinned. No matter how much animosity there was between him and his old 'peers,' one thing was for certain. Most -if not all— of them were not as bugged by the fact that he was back, as they were curious about _why_ he was a free man. And he wasn't about to indulge them. "Y'know… Your friend asked me the very same thing a couple of days ago."

"My friend?"

"Trepe," Seifer replied. "She was itching to know why I'm all absolved of sin now."

Xu stared at him.

"But I'll never tell," Seifer said with a smirk, beating Xu to the punch and pushing the elevator button himself.

* * *

Jonah sat behind his desk, feeling his eyelids grow heavier by the minute.

Even though the hardest part of getting Galbadia Garden back into business was over, the most tedious part was just now dawning upon them. The paperwork, negotiations and legalities needed were going to take months. Being inactive was one of the things Jonah Meric hated the most, but his greatest issue wasn't idleness.

It was time.

And they were running out of time.

The phone rang, disrupting Jonah's thoughts and pulling him back into reality. Wearily, he picked up the receiver. "Yes?"

_"Mr. Meric?"_ came the voice of his secretary from the other end of the line. _"I have an incoming call from Mrs. Roscoe."_

"Put her through," Jonah said, frowning. "I thought I told you to call me on my cell only," he hurried to say the moment the call was redirected to his office.

_"Oh relax, Jonah. The line is secure,"_ said the female voice on the other end of the line.

"Was there something you wanted?"

_"Love your manners."_

"Sorry," he muttered, rubbing his sore temple with one hand. "Been swamped with work. Is something wrong?"

_"No, not really. I just returned from Centra, so I was wondering if I could meet him."_

"Too late. Left for Balamb Garden already."

_"Can't I reach him there?"_

"Not yet. He's not ready."

_"We're running out of time."_

_Don't I know it,_ Jonah thought. "I know, but there are still matters to take care of. He'll be safe there."

_"Not for long. What about the others?"_

"Nothing on my end yet. Have you found any of them?"

_"I may have a lead. My people are already on it."_

"Where?"

_"Esthar."_

"Hmmm…"

_"What?"_

"Just had an idea. In a week or so, you'll catch a flight over to Esthar to meet up with your team."

_"Why?"_

"You can keep an eye on him there. I'll make sure he shows up. But no personal contact yet. Fair enough?"

_"…I guess."_

"I'll give you a call when it's time and send over a ticket, alright?"

_"I can afford my own ticket, Jonah…"_

"What? No… I didn't mean—"

_"Oh, you make it so easy. I'm joking. You know I love it when you take care of me."_

Jonah sighed. "Is that all? I still have mountains of paperwork to finish."

_"Yeah, that's all. I'll be expecting a call. Love you."_

"…Me too."

* * *

_Well then, this is dandy,_ Seifer thought as he stared at the ceiling of the cramped little dorm.

In all fairness, the dorms had changed for the better since he'd been a student there, but any sort of work dealing with their tendency to induce claustrophobia had been omitted.

As he had previously figured, B-Garden had taken every measure in making sure his arrival was kept as secret as possible. Which was saying something, seeing as he'd arrived in broad daylight. He was escorted to his room lightning-fast, told the first meeting would be held tomorrow and then Xu had slammed the door to his face. It wasn't like her behavior had hurt his feelings, but the battle within him was raging.

Do as Jonah had advised and keep his head down, or cause a little bit of mayhem in retaliation?

It's not as if the latter was hard to do. Everyone in Balamb Garden, old or new, knew his face, and seeing him walk among them casually would cause no small amount of panic. He spent quite some time locked up in the room, thinking of ways to make a trip out into the open even more dramatic (some of his ideas included a straightjacket), but he decided to simply stay put.

He took a shower, emptied his duffel bag, wandered about the room and discovered a stash of _Girl Next Door_ magazines under the mattress. He skimmed them, read some of Jonah's notes, fell asleep in boredom and woke up again, realizing one, that he was hungry, and two, that it was already nighttime.

It took a lot of time to finally make the decision to venture outside, and even then, he decided to wait a bit until curfew so he could sneak out mostly unnoticed. He wondered if the coin-on-a-string trick still worked with the vending machines in the cafeteria.

He soon discovered that the rooms weren't the only new thing within Garden. Cursing under his breath, he paid for a soda and a sandwich and made his way out again.

He decided that since the hallways were empty, he might as well make a walk out of it and wandered around Garden, chewing greedily on the sandwich. Not much had changed, apparently, though the structure was definitely shinier than it once had been. It seemed that a lot of care and attention went into the military institution lately. It hadn't exactly been a wreck back in the day, but he'd lived within these walls long enough to be able to see the difference.

To his slight shock and disgust he noticed that there were Koi fish swimming around the little pools of water surrounding the hallways and center of the structure. If he had to guess, he'd say it had been Messenger Girl's idea.

He was right.

There were a lot more details about the new Garden that caught his eye, but all they did was convince them of just how mind-numbingly bored everyone had been after the war's end. His wasn't a popular opinion, but he preferred it when things were a little more exciting. Deep down, they would've all agreed with him.

_Koi fish, for fuck's sake._

He tossed the sandwich wrapping and the soda can in a near-by bin and began to make his way back to his room, when he heard a sound in the distance.

_Well, damn. I should've brought that straightjacket after all,_ he thought, grinning, and prepared himself for his first impromptu meeting with a Garden resident. Following the trajectory of the sound, he pinpointed it over by the infirmary's door. A lone figure stood there, but it wasn't who he would've expected to see coming out from there. Unless Dr. Kadowaki had dropped down ten sizes.

The person standing by the door locked up and then made her way down the hallway, yawning. She was still too far away to make out clearly, but there was something about her walk and long dark hair that made his stomach churn uncomfortably.

It was Rinoa.

And she'd just now spotted him, something that effectively rooted her to the spot.

One thing Seifer was glad for was that she wasn't accompanied by her bitch, Angelo.

"…Rinoa." The name left his lips before he could stop himself.

Rinoa on the other hand, seemed to be unable to say anything, which –to Seifer's knowledge- was a first. She looked pale, far paler than she normally did and he didn't know whether the expression on her face was one of horror or anger. Her hands were shaking.

Seifer averted his gaze and tried to look anywhere but the young Sorceress, hovering awkwardly between the option of bolting and the option of saying something.

"So ummm… how've you been?"

The question seemed to spark something within the girl, and she straightened up to her full height (which wasn't much compared to Seifer's, but still made somewhat of an impression) looking livid.

"Since I last saw you?" she said, her tone forcibly collected. "Pretty good. Fell on my knees, _merged_ with a Sorceress, oh wait, you actually witnessed_ that_…"

One would have to be exceptionally thick to miss the harsh tone in her voice, and despite popular claims, Seifer didn't belong in that particular group of people.

"Saved the world," Rinoa went on. "Nearly saw Squall die, squeezed my way out of time compression… kept busy, overall."

"Right," Seifer muttered, biting the inside of his cheek nervously. He wasn't naïve enough to expect even someone like Rinoa to let bygones be bygones, but he really wasn't prepared to face her on the first night following his arrival. "Look, uhh… I… I just wanted to say I'm—"

"You're what?" Rinoa interrupted him, crossing her arms in front of her chest and chuckling derisively. "_Sorry_? Well gee, that really does make _everything_ right in the world," she said, her voice dripping with the kind of sarcasm he'd never witnessed from her before.

"What d'you want me to do, beg for forgiveness?" Seifer said. Though he was beginning to feel irritated at the verbal assault, his voice registered mostly resignation and much less hostility. "Nothing I say will change what happened."

"For once, we fully agree," Rinoa said, nodding. "So… what are you doing here?"

Seifer arched an eyebrow. "Didn't Trepe and Tilmitt—?"

"Yes, they told us about the Centra meeting," Rinoa cut him off. "We were expecting you, I know that much. What I'm asking is what are you _really_ doing here?"

Seifer grinned, trying to somewhat lighten the atmosphere. "In case you haven't noticed, I've been playing nice for a while now. Haven't been up to anything sinister."

Rinoa nodded. "Yet."

"Look, I'm not here to sabotage you _or_ your buddies," Seifer said with a sigh. "All I want is to do my job, and I've only _just_ arrived and it's getting too late for this sh—"

"You're right, it _is_ too late," Rinoa said, and she dropped the sarcasm for good, only to shift her expression into genuine sadness.

"You know what I meant."

"I do. And you know what _I_ meant."

"Yeah…" Seifer said, scrutinizing her closely. "Gotcha."

Rinoa hesitated for a moment, and he could tell she was trying to decide between leaving and saying more. He wasn't at all eager to continue this conversation, but he gave her time to make her decision. He owed her that much.

"Seifer?" Rinoa finally said, staring at her shoes.

"Yeah?"

"Stay away from me," she said, looking up straight into his eyes. "I mean it. Even if you're not looking for trouble, I don't want you around me."

"I can't control—"

"Outside of meetings," Rinoa interrupted, sounding every bit as serious as one could get. "I don't really attend them all too often, but I'm not going to put a restraining order on you. I know there will be times when we can't control running into each other. But outside of that, I don't want you near me. I don't want you talking to me, I don't want you—"

"Yeah, yeah, fine," Seifer said, holding up a hand to stop her rant. "I won't bug you. I didn't intend to anyway."

"Good," Rinoa said. "It's for your own safety."

Seifer made a big effort not to laugh. Rinoa's 5' 4" and skinny limbs weren't exactly the stuff of nightmares, but he knew better. She was different now. "Yeah, I noticed," he said, not laughing, but settling on a vague grin.

"What's _that_ supposed to mean? Noticed what?"

"You've got… the look."

Rinoa cocked her head to the side, looking impatient but also curious. "The 'look.' "

"Yeah," Seifer said. "I've seen it before. It doesn't suit you." _Edea had it. Adel had it. Ultimecia had it. You know what I'm talking about. _

"That was pretty deep," Rinoa said, sarcasm returning to her voice.

"I'm serious, Rinoa," Seifer interrupted her. It was his turn to look somber. "You hate my guts. Fine, you're… entitled to," he admitted, with no small amount of effort or distaste. "I'm an arse, I'm dangerous, I suck… the works. Feel whatever you wanna feel about me, but hear me out on this one; you're treading on thin ice."

"Spooky," Rinoa said, clearly not convinced Seifer could ever possibly tell her anything of importance. "Now if you'll excuse me…" she trailed off and turned her heel, making her way over to the dormitories.

Seifer lingered there a little longer, staring at her departing figure and her black hair dancing on her back as she walked away. It had gotten significantly longer since he'd last seen her. Long, straight, shiny… He had a sudden vision of it being swept right into a magnificent headpiece framing her face.

_Scared little boy…_

"Shut up," Seifer said out loud, willing the chills down his spine to go away.

It was the first day back, and things were already looking grim.

_Home, sweet Home, _he thought as he slipped the card into the receptor of his door.

* * *

**A/N: **Some day the poor boy's having, eh?

This chapter was supposed to end long before Seifer arrived, but I figured that since it took so long to update, I might as well speed things up a tad and bring him over so we can start getting to the 'meatier' aspects of the story. So, introduction is officially over, and we can now move forward to a little thing called plot.

As per usual, notes on this chapter to references and clarifications can be found in the forum.

**04/10/2010 EDIT: If there's any chapter I would recommend re-reading, this would be the one since it has been edited the most. Again, it's not ground-breaking stuff, so you won't be missing out on anything that won't be addressed later on as well. Here's the list of changes:**

**- 3****rd**** scene ends sooner than it used to, and continues later on in the 5****th**** scene with a small addition (see below).**

**- 4****th**** scene, Zell thinks about his relationship with Shizuka and the constant obstacles he faces when trying to get her to open up to him.**

**- 5****th**** scene, continuation of 3****rd****. Quistis thinks about Zone and has a small accident while training. The accident in question was previously only a reference in chapter 4.**

**- 6****th**** scene, Quistis arrives late to the meeting. There's also a mention of Sphere, a fictional sport in my story. I have absolutely no idea what happens in that sport yet, but I might flesh it out in later chapters. Sphere gets its name from the sphere-like shape of the stadiums its played in. **

**- The line "Forty six and two, are just ahead of me," is a lyric taken from the song **_**Forty six and two,**_** by the band Tool. If you want a small hint on what Rinoa is thinking about, look up the song's meaning.**

**- I don't really have to explain _Facejournal,_ do I? It's my silly little portmanteau (Facebook and LiveJournal) for an FF8 equivalent of an online social network.  
**


	5. Chapter 4: Somnio Ergo Sum

**DISCLAIMER: **Nothing witty comes to mind right now, so I'll keep it simple. Not mine, Square's.

**A/N: **Just when I thought I was stuck in a rut with this story, everything just came together. Here's to hoping I'll have the time to write this one to the end.

Also, is there a way to make the lines double-spaced without having to go to HTML mode and adding a 'br' after every line? :S If anyone knows, I'd appreciate you telling me. The blockiness makes me sad.

* * *

**Chapter 4:** Somnio Ergo Sum

* * *

_"Dreams are the answers to questions that we haven't yet _

_figured out how to ask."_

– _**Fox Mulder, 'The X-Files'**_

_**

* * *

**_

Seifer had never been a morning person. Fifteen years of military life hadn't been able to change that fact, which would explain why he was always in a foul mood during his first classes in Garden. Granted, that often held true for the rest of the day as well, but Seifer merely attributed it to built-up amounts of crap he had to deal with on a daily basis.

A lukewarm morning shower usually did the trick and got him up and about. Either that, or getting his toes smashed on cheap Garden furniture en route to the bathroom. Today, however, that wasn't the case.

It all started with a mosquito.

Now Seifer Almasy would be the first to admit he didn't have the best of relationships with most of Hyne's creatures, but insects had no reason to exist in his not-so-humble opinion. Especially mosquitoes. Their purpose in life was to suck blood and annoy the shit out of anyone unfortunate enough to cross their path. The mosquito in question had been torturing him for the better part of an hour and he could already feel several parts of his body itching like mad. He tried to ignore the feeling, ignore the constant buzzing as the insect zoomed right past his ear, but it was getting just plain ridiculous by now.

_It's _November_,_ he thought bitterly._ Why do you even _exist_ on fucking November? You should be lurking about till summer or hanging around a swamp and spreading malaria to the world, you little shit._

Tossing and turning hadn't worked. Neither had covering himself up as best as he could. He didn't want to know the exact mechanics, but somehow, the annoying little git could pierce through thick fabric like it was nothing. Eventually, he gave up trying to move out of its way and slipped a bleary eye open.

It took a few moments of silence and absolute stillness before he spotted the offender flying past his eyes and landing on the nightstand. Seifer's eyes fell on the shelf below. It was now or never.

_Quick as a cat, quick as a cat,_ he thought, and carefully reached out for the thick book he spotted on the shelf. His hand closed around it; the mosquito didn't budge. Slowly, he pulled his arm back and bit his lip in concentration.

It was over in one swift movement and a loud thud.

Grinning, Seifer slid out of the covers and picked the book up, checking its bottom surface. Sure enough, the mosquito had been reduced to mush, leaving remnants of blood and wings and thread-thin little legs on both wood and hardcover. He gave the teeny carcass a one-fingered salute, his grin spreading further.

He stretched and let out a yawn, tossing the book on the bed. As it bounced on the mattress, it flipped over to the front cover, and it was then that Seifer realized he hadn't brought any books along. _Perhaps it's something the previous tenant left behind,_ he thought, and leaned over the mattress to pick up the book.

Its cover was dark green and had blocky, gold writing on it. _Codex Caelestis,_ Seifer read. The Divine Book, the word of Hyne. Groaning, he tossed the book on the nightstand in distaste. He had a feeling he'd find an identical copy in every single dorm room if he looked, and he wasn't mistaken. Apparently, religion was the new cool thing.

For lack of better material to brainstorm about as he took his morning shower, Seifer's thoughts remained on _Codex Caelestis_ and religion. He was an –albeit reluctant- believer, but he couldn't be bothered to do the whole church thing. What had bugged him the most about the book in question was the not-so-subtle way Garden officials had imposed it upon students.

And they weren't the only ones.

The Esthari Patriarchate had gone to great lengths to draw a bigger crowd in lately, and one of their most recent methods had been to anoint a particularly young, teenage-friendly and articulate High Priest.

He hadn't bothered to follow the story much on the news, so for all he knew the new guy was alright, but Seifer had always had a hard time believing people who claimed to be completely selfless.

His thoughts didn't linger on the matter much longer. He let his mind go blissfully blank as leaned against the wall, letting the warm water cascade soothingly on his back.

* * *

"He's late," Squall growled.

"He's not," said Irvine, making everyone in the room turn to stare at him. The cowboy looked a little uncomfortable at the silent rebuttal, but spoke again nonetheless. "I'm not defending him or anything… But it _is_ five to eight."

"Whatever," muttered Squall, reaching for his coffee.

The tension inside the office was tangible.

Cid's brief vacation to Centra had made everything just a little more difficult for everyone, since responsibilities many of them weren't prepared or willing to face had fallen upon their shoulders; soldiers were not meant to handle executive decisions. Once word of the imminent contract between the two Gardens had reached Cid, he had insisted on returning earlier, though only half-heartedly. Xu had assured him that handling Seifer on their own for an extra day or two wasn't that much of a hassle and he needn't cut his vacation short. Cid was only too happy to oblige.

Squall was still not talking to Xu.

So for the time being, Cid's shoes were being filled by not one, but six SeeDs. Six different people, who had more or less the same opinion on the situation, but felt entirely different things. Some felt anger, some felt anticipation. Some, though they wouldn't admit it even to themselves, felt elation.

Quistis in particular was more interested in observing her comrades, since she was still torn on the subject. She hovered unsteadily between trying to appear marginally interested in the morning paper, and stealing glances of the rest of the room's occupants. She would study their faces, curious to know what it was they were thinking, and would then momentarily shift her attention back on the front-page headlines.

* * *

_**MASSIVE BLACKOUT IN ESTHAR CITY PUZZLES EXPERTS**_

_The ongoing investigation in Kobu's power plant has yet to yield any explanation whatsoever for the sudden power failure on the 23__rd__ of November that plunged a quarter of the city into darkness. Specialists arrived on location to find most of the equipment singed, but no clues as to what led to their destruction. As the public rages on for immediate power restoration to numerous blocks of the city, the establishment employees remain silent and refuse to comment on the situation._

_President Loire issued an official statement this morning: "They're working on it. No, really!" _

_Read more on pg.15 _

_

* * *

_

The continuation of the article was boring at best. It was a true testament to the restoration of peace that this was the most significant piece of news for months now. If she'd had no other worries on her mind, it might have interested Quistis to read on, but she had far more unsettling things to worry about.

The obvious concern was the fact that Seifer was about to re-enter their lives, and whereas that may have once been nothing but a plain annoyance, it was now enough reason to feel uneasy. There were still many questions about the events that had led him to his current position after the war, and she was certain he didn't plan on being entirely sincere about the whole deal.

On the other hand, despite her better judgment, she couldn't help but feel a little worried about Seifer's well-being as well. It was in her nature to try and empathize with both sides, and having known Seifer since he was a child, she couldn't drive away every vestige of feelings she had for him. She didn't think it likely that Seifer was now a halo short of sainthood, but she knew that a lot of the anger that would be directed at him for the next few months would be somewhat unjustified.

She was willing to forgive and forget, provided that he showed true remorse. Was everyone else?

_I'm not the one who got the short end of the stick, though,_ she thought. There were others who had endured far worse from Seifer than being called mediocre. Rinoa and Selphie, for instance. Whereas she disapproved of grudges, she could understand how they would have a harder time accepting him.

Still, the mere mention of ghosts past tended to get her overly emotional as of late. The latest Garden policy demanded that every single SeeD who had ever used a Guardian Force even once or twice had to go through sessions with a psychologist. It wasn't widely known, but those select few who had traveled through time during time compression had been receiving more regular treatment than the rest. Quistis was indeed grateful that the nightmares which had followed their victory were nearly gone, but she hadn't felt more exposed (not to mention ridiculous) in her whole life before experiencing professional hypnotism.

The psychologist had insisted that it was an excellent method to recall past memories, and she couldn't deny she remembered more than ever now, but the emotional outbursts weren't pleasant. Just the other day she had unearthed a relic of her childhood while cleaning up, a handmade bracelet she had been given by Ellone, and she had started blubbering like a child for more than a solid hour.

Feeling sorry and compassionate for Seifer wasn't something she had been planning on, and it disturbed her far more than his actual arrival.

"Enter," she heard Squall say, and it was only then that Quistis realized she had been so absorbed in her own thoughts she hadn't even heard the subtle knock on the door.

She put her newspaper down hastily and sat up straight. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as she watched the door swing open slowly.

The first thing she saw was a tuft of brown hair. Shizuka's head appeared, and she looked more subdued than Quistis had seen her in ages. After she had started dating Zell, her true personality had come to the surface, and long gone was the quiet librarian. Seeing her look so shy was indeed unusual lately.

"Seifer Almasy here to see you, Commander," she said in a small voice.

Quistis fought the urge to laugh. She knew many people saw Seifer as a terrifying man after he'd led the Galbadian front. However, every time she tried to summon up a memory of him as of late, all she could see was a skinny little boy with long, dirty hair, trying to flee from a sweaty, impatient, scissor-wielding Cid.

"Let him in," Squall said.

Quistis thought she heard a quiver of anticipation in his voice. Again, she stifled a grin.

_Children still, the both of them._

Shizuka nodded and slipped back out quickly. Quistis heard her say something to the person waiting outside and the door swung open once more.

Seifer entered, and Quistis had a little bit of déjà vu as she saw him walk in, remembering the meeting in Centra. He wasn't wearing his SeeD uniform, but he wasn't wearing his usual attire either. Once more, he seemed a bit out of place. Everyone else was clad in their trademark battle clothes, save for him. The plain jeans and black sweater he wore were quite different from his old trenchcoat; the latter had always screamed for attention, whereas this was... bland.

Between the two, she had to admit she preferred his old clothes. The coat in particular was ostentatious, but it had more character.

Seifer closed the door behind him and turned to look at everyone.

For a few seconds that seemed to stretch on forever, no one spoke. It felt like the beginning of a one-on-one combat, were both opponents spent time scrutinizing the enemy, seizing him up, while trying to decide on a course of action.

Quistis's eyes immediately went to Squall. She had spent a great deal of time in the past few years observing him, and she liked to think she could understand what he was thinking about quite often. But right now, he wasn't easy to read. He looked furious, alert, yet at the same time, she hadn't seen him so alive in ages. His eyes blazed with anticipation.

As was more than often the case, it was Irvine who decided to take the diplomatic route and address Seifer first.

"Hey, Seifer. Have a seat," he said, and motioned towards the empty seat at the bottom end of the table, right across the head, where Squall sat.

Seifer gave him a curt nod and made his way to the empty chair. He was carrying a thin folder which he deposited on the table after he sat down.

Yet more silence followed, though this time it was pure awkwardness. Everyone appeared to be on the verge of speaking, but they didn't know what to say to break the ice and get the meeting started.

Quistis decided to give it a shot this time around. "Um, coffee...?" she offered, and immediately felt stupid.

_Coffee? Hyne, I swear... I need to quit counseling ASAP._

Everyone, including Seifer, turned to look at her quizzically. The blond in particular gave her a look that suggested he had doubts it was really her speaking and not an impostor.

"Uhhh... No, thank you," he said, snapping out of it. He cleared his throat and spoke again, looking weary. "Well then... let's get down to business. None of us want to be here, so might as well get it over with as fast as possible."

"Truer words have never been spoken," said Xu. "So, your-"

Seifer began to slip papers out from the folder he'd been carrying, when he came to a sudden stop. "Hold on... where's Cid?"

"None of your business," Xu said sharply.

A slight frown crossed Seifer's face. "Is he alright?" he asked, and Quistis was somewhat shocked to detect even the slightest hint of worry in his voice. She was under the impression Seifer still felt very bitter after his last exchange with Cid, following his the Dollet field exam.

"Don't pretend you suddenly care-" Xu snapped.

"I'm asking 'cause it's not exactly common policy to have SeeDs overlook Garden-related meetings," Seifer cut her off. "I'm here only because of my connections to this place and a general shortage of staff. And don't _you_ pretend you know the first thing about me, Chang. Where's Cid?"

Xu seemed to be weighing her options silently, as she took her sweet time replying. In the end, she settled on a vague approach. "Taking a small leave of absence. That's all you need to know," she said.

Seifer blinked. He looked around the room, his eyes going over every single familiar face in bewilderment. "So what, I'm supposed to talk details over with you?"

"Yes," replied Xu.

The blond let out a groan. "Lovely."

"Some of us are used to making executive decisions for Garden, Almasy," Xu said. "Just say what you're here to say and cut the commentary." There was a general murmur of agreement, though no one said any actual words. Xu was the one calling the shots so far, and none of them seemed to mind, not even Squall.

"Fine, I'll give you the summary," said Seifer. "We want to be fully operational by March. End of."

_Summary, indeed,_ Quistis thought wryly.

"March? The _following_ March?" exclaimed Xu.

"Yes."

"Forget about it," Xu said, letting out a scoff. "If we're going to endure this whole charade, we might as well do it properly. Three months isn't _nearly_ enough time to make a proper supervision of an entire Garden."

"Jonah thought you'd say this," Seifer said, and he began going through his papers once more.

"Jonah who?" asked Xu.

Seifer glanced up at her for a moment, arching an eyebrow. "Jonah Meric?"

"He's the new G-Garden Headmaster," Quistis explained.

"Really?" said Xu. "What's his damage, then? Aside from trusting Almasy."

It had been a while since Quistis had seen Seifer angry, and she had nearly forgotten how piercing his eyes could get when he glared at someone as intensely as he was glaring at Xu right now.

"Let's get something straight, Chang," he said, pointing at her. "I'll take a lot of shit from you cause I'm being paid to do so, and handsomely, I may add. But that shit extends to me and me alone. One more word about Jonah and I'll thrust your sais so far up your bony ars-"

"_Bring_ it, asshole!" Xu challenged, standing up. It couldn't have been clearer she'd been itching for a confrontation.

"Hey, hey, HEY!" Quistis shouted, and stood up just as Seifer did. She put a firm hand on Xu's shoulder. "That's enough."

She had hoped there wouldn't be any sort of heated arguments, though part of her couldn't help but feel surprised at Seifer's fierce rebuttal. Since when was he loyal to a superior?

"Keep it civil," Squall said. His voice was quiet, but it was firm enough to bring an end to the commotion. "Or you'll both be demoted back to cadets."

"Keep your threats to your own Hynedamned SeeDs, Puberty Boy," Seifer retorted, falling back on his seat huffily. "You can't dem-"

"Oh, yes I can," Squall said, his lips twitching ever-so-slightly into a grin. "That's my only term if we're going to shake hands on this. I'll supervise you only if I have as much control on you as on the rest of B-Garden's SeeDs."

Quistis sat down as well, pulling Xu down with her, and looked from Squall to Seifer and back again. Squall seemed to savor his victory. Seifer had returned; the competition was on again. Squall had his equal back and it gave him more excitement than anything else had in ages.

Seifer, for his part, did nothing but glare at Squall. It was reminiscent of old times, though there was something new there. Seifer had always treated Squall with a twisted kind of respect, Quistis knew, but there was more hidden in his gaze now. He didn't look amused as he usually did back then. It seemed to her as if he was looking at Squall in a way that suggested he was biding his time until... something.

Irvine cleared his throat rather loudly, trying to get the conversation back on track. "You were saying?" he said, looking at Seifer.

Seifer took a deep breath and turned his eyes over to his papers, though it was obvious he was simply looking for something else to glare at for the time being. "We want to be operational by March, but you don't think it can happen," he said. "Jonah thought we'd hit this snag so he prepared an alternate offer."

"Which is?" Quistis asked.

"Allow G-Garden to start recruiting on March without full control of its operations," Seifer replied.

"And that means...?" asked Squall.

"If you think the supervision is running smoothly, give G-Garden clearance to start recruiting," said Seifer. "All proceeds from missions will go to G-Garden's reconstruction and the exchange program with T-Garden, but you'll get to choose the missions yourselves. You get to say _where_, you get to say _when_, you get to say _who_. As time progresses, and when you see fit, you start relinquishing some liberties back to G-Garden's administration. And eventually, allow G-Garden to become fully independent again."

Once more, there was silence as everyone digested what Seifer had just proposed.

Quistis was relieved. She had expected at least one or two demands that couldn't possibly be met, but the proposal was decent indeed. Jonah Meric was either a very reasonable, or a very diplomatic man. Or both.

"That sounds reasonable...?" she said to the room at large.

"I agree," said Irvine, sharing Quistis's expression of relief. Since he came from Galbadia Garden himself, he must've hoped things would work out in the end for his old home. "We'll still have a good amount of control over their operations to see who is fit to handle the works when we withdraw our units."

"Speaking of which," Xu cut in. "What kind of bonuses can we expect for Garden and our representatives there? It won't be easy to convince many to move to Galbadia."

"Seven percent bonus for regular SeeD salary, eleven for high-ranked members and instructors," Seifer replied. "Bear in mind that a G-Garden SeeD's salary is already three percent above the Balmish one," he added.

"It is?" Zell asked, looking mildly interested.

"Make that thirteen for higher ranks and you've got yourself a deal," said Xu.

"I don't handle the financial aspects," said Seifer. "You'll have to fax Delia Cauffield for that."

"Will do."

As if coming out of a long trance, Selphie stopped fidgeting discreetly in her seat and spoke up. Quistis had nearly forgot she had been attending this meeting. "I have a request to make," Selphie said.

Seifer turned to look at her. "Yes?"

"I want two things concerning the Trabian aid program," Selphie said, drawing a deep breath. "A five-year deal of the latest Galbadian military prototypes sold to T-Garden at a generous discount and a memorial."

"A memorial?" Seifer asked, puzzled.

"Something like a statue, or a fountain, whatever," Selphie responded, waving her hand airily. "Just something nice to commemorate those who died during the Second Sorceress War in T-Garden."

Seifer nodded, taking down notes of what Selphie had just asked. "I'll have to pass these along for Jonah's consideration, but I think they're both doable."

Selphie nodded in return, and sank back into her seat, falling quiet once more.

Seifer stopped writing and spent a couple of minutes looking over his notes. "So... Are we done with the rough draft? Most of the technicalities are supposed to be handled by others."

"I have a question," Zell piped in.

To say that Quistis was shocked might have sounded a little harsh, but the truth was that Zell rarely paid any attention to official matters. The concept of him having been listening and even having a question was completely new to her.

Apparently, Seifer had been thinking along the same lines. He looked up from his notes and gave Zell a wary look. "Hmmm?"

"What's your part in all this?" Zell asked.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning, how often are you going to be showing your face around here?"

Seifer scoffed gently. "As often as necessary, though no more than that, I assure you."

"And how often will that be?" asked Zell.

"That depends on your glorious leader," quipped Seifer, and he turned to look at Squall. "He said something about 'full control.' Though I should mention I'm required per contract to return to G-Garden for frequent reports."

"For as long as you stay here, you'll have no more power than any other SeeD, save from attending these meetings," Squall explained. "Whenever you have to return to G-Garden, I expect frequent reports by phone, fax, or e-mail as well."

"Reports on what?" Seifer asked, frowning.

"Your discussions with your superior," said Squall.

Seifer's expression switched to surprise. "You want me to spy on my superior for you?" His tone suggested that Squall had better be joking, or else.

"No, but I want to know everything that's being said concerning G-Garden's reinstatement."

"You'll get signed statements from Jonah himself," Seifer said. "I may be under your supervision, but when I'm in G-Garden grounds, I answer only to the Headmaster there."

Squall looked more interested than annoyed at the way Seifer spoke of this Meric person, Quistis noticed. "Fair enough," he said. "But just so you know, when I say full control, I mean it. If I order you to aid a mission, you do it. If I demote you, you accept it. If I say 'Jump,' you jump."

Seifer took a small pause. It didn't take years of careful observation to tell Quistis that he was trying to hold back a retort; that much was obvious. "I only work with my team," he eventually said in a dignified tone.

"Your team?" Zell snorted. "Since when do SeeDs operate on set teams?"

"Since my superior asked me to lead one," Seifer said impatiently.

"He asked _you_ to lead-" Zell began, but Squall cut him off.

"I don't care how your superior likes to operate, but in this Garden, we do things differently," he said.

Seifer chuckled, shaking his head in disbelief. "You may think you've got us by the balls," he said. "But let me remind you that B-Garden is being offered a _very_ generous bonus to undertake this task, and until things heat up in Galbadia, sponsorships are the only thing keeping you afloat. I work with my own team." he repeated firmly. "If you want me to run errands for you, I'll only do it with my people. This is my term on this contract; take it or leave it."

"And how many people are we talking about?" Xu asked.

"Six, including me," Seifer replied.

"And you expect five people to follow you back and forth and run to your beck and call whenever I ask something of you?" Squall asked incredulously.

It was Seifer's turn to enjoy a little victory of his own. The fact that Squall had to ask showed him that he'd been underestimating the kind of influence Seifer had in Galbadia Garden. And from what Quistis had seen so far, he was probably ranked quite high on G-Garden's list of valued SeeDs. "That's exactly what I expect them to do. They answer only to me and Jonah. If you can accept that, then we're done here."

Squall looked somewhat unconvinced, but eventually gave in. "...I'll need detailed profiles and resumes from all five," he said.

"You'll have them," Seifer said, still unable to wipe a small grin off his face. "But not their real names."

"And why the hell not?" Xu asked.

"It's called being undercover, Chang," Seifer said, with the patient air of someone explaining something complicated to a particularly dim person. "These people have lives outside this little negotiation and knowing how big a target for investigation they will be in the next few months, their records aren't safe anywhere. Not here, not in G-Garden's databases. _I _don't even know their real names."

"Do they know yours?" Xu asked, arching an eyebrow.

"What do you think?" Seifer said wryly.

"Well, I'm assuming being a Sorceress's welcoming mat didn't do wonders for your anonymity," Xu replied.

"No. Not among SeeDs, at least," Seifer said dismissively, and began collecting his papers. "Are we done?"

"We're done," Squall said. "When can you have those profiles ready for me?"

"Probably tomorrow," Seifer replied. "Takes a while to get authorization from the central database. I'll e-mail them today."

"Right," said Squall. "And when can we expect your team to arrive?"

"I need to return to Galbadia soon to talk to Jonah in person," Seifer said. "When I come back, I'll bring them along."

"We'll arrange quarters for them," said Squall. "Some might have to share, though. A lot of the facilities are being renovated and we're a little tight on dorms at the moment."

"That's fine," Seifer said with a shrug. "I'll send you the personal files when I get them," he added, and got up.

He didn't linger even a second more than he needed to, and left the room without so much as a nod.

Quistis was about to get up herself, when she was blown back to her seat by the black blur that was Xu, running outside to catch up with Seifer.

Quistis blinked, staring at the door in bewilderment. "What the...?"

"She told me she just remembered something," Zell explained, grinning.

"Remembered what?" Quistis asked.

"She forgot to tell Seifer that she's in charge of giving SeeDs clearance to drive a vehicle."

* * *

Squall exited the office in a foul mood.

The meeting hadn't gone as smoothly as he'd expected. He knew Seifer was going to be bad news period, but the fact that he had gotten away with slipping some of his own terms in wasn't sitting too well with the Commander.

He had kept the upper hand for most of the discussion, but something about the fact that Seifer wasn't going to disclose his team's names was disturbing Squall. So far, it didn't look like Galbadia was up to anything sinister, but he couldn't be too safe where someone as Seifer was concerned.

They would have to conduct a secret investigation of their own after he got a hold of those profiles.

He would've liked to have denied Seifer his proposed term, but the orders from the Garden Council were absolute. They were required to come to an agreement with G-Garden, and he could tell Seifer wouldn't have budged a single inch on this particular demand.

Still, he couldn't deny that a little something to pull them out of the boredom was a refreshing change. His hands itched to hold Lionheart. If anything, he had someone to spar with now, and an unexpected smile came to his lips.

He shook it off as soon as it came. _Hold it together,_ he chastised himself. _People are going to think you've gone mad._

He was nearly at the elevator when he heard footsteps behind him and a voice calling him.

"Commander!"

He looked over his shoulder and saw Shizuka running towards him, out of breath.

"Phone. Call. For you," she said once she reached him, panting.

"Is it urgent?" Squall asked.

"I think you'll wanna take this," Shizuka said earnestly.

"Who's calling?" Squall asked, quite impatient to get back to his dorm. He'd had enough pencil-pushing for the day and wanted to let some steam off at the training center.

"Esthar," Shizuka said.

From Shizuka's tone, he understood immediately who was calling. There had been a slight hesitation before she'd spoken, and he knew it was because of the subject labeled taboo within Garden: The President of Esthar and his relationship to the Commander.

A muscle twitched in Squall's jaw. He looked from the open elevator door to Shizuka and back, weighing his options.

Door Number One, freedom. No Laguna, no awkwardness, no nothing. All would be well, except for the fact that he would have to face Rinoa's wrath once she found out he had refused to talk to his father.

Door Number Two, happy Rinoa. Tense Squall, excited Laguna, and pointless drivel.

_This had better be good,_ Squall thought, and gave Shizuka a sharp nod to lead him to the phone.

Shizuka stepped forward, falling into complete silence. She picked up the receiver and told the caller she was transferring them to Squall's line. Squall entered his office again, slamming the door behind him.

He fell onto his chair unceremoniously, and glared at the receiver. _First Seifer, and now _this, he thought, sighing. _I am _not_ a bed person. _ Wearily, he picked up the phone. "Yes?" he drawled.

_"Commander Leonhart?"_

"That's me."

_"Please hold, I'm transferring you to President Loire."_

"Joy..."

_"Excuse me?"_

"Nothing, go ahead. I'm waiting."

_"...don't you forgeeeeeeeeet... The times down in Obel Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaake..."_

Squall jerked back from the phone, blinking at it. Gritting his teeth, he held it up against his ear again, waiting for the annoying on-hold music to stop. As if it wasn't enough he had to talk to Laguna, the bumbling idiot was making him _wait_.

_"I'm still thinking of youuuuuu-"_

_"Squall?"_

_Oh thank Hyne,_ Squall thought. Between Laguna's voice and the horrid song, he'd have to choose Laguna.

"Hello," he said.

_"Hey, how's it going?"_ Laguna said cheerfully.

_Peachy. _"All right," Squall replied. "Did you want something?"

_"Huh? Oh yes!"_ Laguna said. _"Ummm... I was just wondering if you guys were up for a mission. Nothing too fancy, and we'd get a chance to see each other."_

_Oh, yipee. _"What kind of mission?" Squall asked.

_"Do you know Sethior Rachmanov?"_

"Isn't he the new High Priest of the Church of Hyne?"

_"That's him, yeah," _Laguna replied. _"In five days he's scheduled to make a public appearance over at Liberty Square, here in Esthar."_

"And?"

_"I know it's last minute, but we weren't expecting so much commotion," _Laguna explained. _"There's a few religious groups in the area-"_

"That are known for opposing the Church of Hyne, yeah," Squall cut him off. "What do you want from us?"

_"There have been a few small-scale riots here lately. We're worried it might get worse at the ceremony. He doesn't seem to think he's in any danger, but I don't think his guard is up to a challenge, if you ask me," _Laguna said.

_I didn't._

_"So I'd feel much better if we had you guys as a back-up in the crowd," _Laguna went on. _"I'll just say I hired you as my personal bodyguards if he asks. What do you think?"_

"What's this ceremony about?" Squall asked.

_"He's coming over to inspect E-Garden,"_ Laguna explained. _"It's customary to have a high-profile religious figure bless the foundations before construction begins. He's gonna make a speech, talk about peace, the works. You know how these things usually go."_

"Yeah."

_"So... What do you say? Do you want to think it over first?" _

_I would've liked to, yes, only you called me five days before the event, idiot,_ Squall thought.

Still, as much as he hated to admit it, this was a mission. A _real_ one, for a change. It wasn't anything too challenging, but he'd take anything right now just to sink his teeth into a bit of action.

"We have a deal," Squall said. "You can talk about the details with my secretary."

_"Great!"_ Laguna exclaimed, sounding genuinely happy. _"And hey, you can come over as soon as you want. I hear you're stationed in FH, so it shouldn't take long, yeah? We could spend some time-"_

Squall pushed a button on the phone, transferring the call to Shizuka. "President Loire has hired us for a mission," he told her. "Take care of the details, won't you?"

_"Of course, Commander," _said Shizuka.

"Thanks," said Squall, and he hung up.

He sank back into his seat, closing his eyes. He knew Rinoa was going to make him spend time with Laguna, but he didn't have to sit and listen to him yammering on about what they were going to do together.

_At least I'll get to see Ellone..._

_

* * *

_

"How have you been sleeping?"

Quistis ran her finger over the rim of the teacup she was holding. "Alright. I saw her again last night."

Sascha O'Neil, one of B-Garden's hired psychologists, nodded at Quistis while making small notes on her hand-held pad. She had been assigned to six very specific clients in Garden, so she had the freedom to speak to each and every one of them without the pressure of limited time hanging over their heads. The five SeeDs and the civilian who had defeated Ultimecia were now required to see her weekly and discuss their memory loss as well as possible trauma induced by time compression.

Xu's office was used for such sessions, since it was empty during the times the doctor was available. Being up on the third floor, it was isolated enough from the rest of the Garden to have the kind of privacy needed.

"Was the dream the same?" Sascha O'Neil asked Quistis.

"It's always the same," Quistis replied, and took a sip of warm tea. "Just like the one after Ultimecia's fall."

Back then, Quistis's sleep had been frequently disturbed by a recurring nightmare. Right before the end, right before Ultimecia disappeared into nothingness, she would reach out, hands like claws, clasp her fingers around Quistis's ankle and pull her down into the abyss, where she would wander, alone and cold, until the end of time. It had always been the exact same dream; not a single thing was done differently.

That nightmare had faded until it had disappeared completely after she got into therapy. But just when she thought she would finally have peaceful dreams, she saw _her_.

The dream wasn't exactly frightening in the same manner the Ultimecia one had been. It was more... eerie. Disturbing in a way that made her feel as if there was something to be interpreted out of it all, but she couldn't figure out what.

It always began with her, the old woman. Dull blue eyes, long, scraggly gray hair, ancient-looking skin. She was already dead, lying naked in the flower field near the orphanage. The sky darkened, thunder crackled, and it began to rain blue petals. When the first one fell on her cheek, she would open her eyes wide, and begin to get younger lightning-fast. The hair grew stronger, shinier, and regained its color; blonde. The eyes shone brighter, and the skin tightened until it looked youthful, healthy. The woman, now a young adult, would smile mischievously, and press a finger to her lips.

_Shhhhhhh..._

She would then jump up to her feet, turn her heel and run away through the flower field, naked and free.

But the sky would remain dark forever.

"You once told me the young version of the woman resembles you," Dr. O'Neil said. "Have you ever considered that she _is_ you? A perhaps idealized or simply different version of yourself?"

"Not really," Quistis said, frowning. "Her face looks a lot like mine, but... It's her eyes. Mine have never looked like hers."

"Like what, exactly?"

"Mischievous," Quistis replied. "In a way that suggests she has a big secret no-one knows about. I'm horrible with keeping secrets. I feel like I'm being eaten up inside if I hold something in for too long. She seemed to enjoy knowing something no-one else knows."

"I see," Dr. O'Neil said. "That's good to hear though; you like things clear, out in the open, and you are aware of it."

"I guess..."

The doctor scrutinized Quistis for a bit in silence. "You look a little preoccupied lately," she said. "Is there something bothering you?"

"Not really."

"Do you want to end our session? You look like you can't wait to get out of here."

"No, I... It's just that," Quistis hesitated, grimacing guiltily. "Lately, our sessions have left me feeling so... vulnerable."

"Do you feel it is endangering you at work?"

"In a manner of speaking," Quistis replied. "It's not really a good time for me to be feeling that way. It's like every single memory we bring out wears me out little by little. I... I feel _too much_."

"There's something you need to understand, Quistis," the doctor said. "You and your friends, with the exception of Rinoa, have had no time to grieve for your past. Your mind has a way of protecting itself, by suppressing the worst memories when they get too much to handle. The Guardian Forces definitely added to that, but this is no cure.

Forgetting is never the answer. Haven't you wondered why I was so quick to end Irvine and Selphie's treatment?" she asked. "In their cases, their Guardian Force usage was little and began at a much older age, so they had time to digest everything. You, Zell and Squall simply forgot. But you can't bury your past; you have to face it head on to give your wounds time to heal and be able to move forward."

Quistis shook her head. "I can't deal with this right now," she said. "I was already an emotional wreck, and having Seifer here..."

"Seifer Almasy?" Sascha O'Neil asked. "Yes, you were in the same orphanage, you told me."

"Well, he's back," Quistis said bitterly. "And on top of everything else, I worry about him now as well. When I shouldn't."

"Why not?" asked the doctor. "Don't you think he has quite a hard time ahead of him? He'll have to face a lot of anger here."

"Yes, but he deserves anger," Quistis said, her face darkening. "And yet all I can feel for him is worry and compassion because I once knew him. Or at least thought I did."

"Why do you feel this is bad?"

"Because Seifer always manipulates weaknesses!" Quistis burst out. A few drops of tea spilled on her skirt as her hand shook in anger. _He already did it a few days ago in Centra, have you forgotten?_ she reminded herself. "He sees right through them and torments people for them. It's what he's best at," she said, dropping her cup on the small coffee table beside her with a loud 'thunk.'

"People change," the doctor said. "I hear he's trying to make amends."

Quistis let out a scoff. "Where did you hear _that_?"

"I have my sources," she said. "And they're trustworthy."

"Well... it doesn't matter," Quistis said, rubbing her right temple with one hand. "Seifer is far from my primary worry."

"Which is?"

"The emotional outbursts," the blonde replied. "They've been affecting my casting. I can't concentrate. Either I won't be able to cast a thing, or I'll cause mayhem even with the simplest of spells. I was merely training the other day and I froze the ground around me solid," she explained, chuckling humorlessly.

"It's only natural for your emotions to have an effect on your job and daily life."

"Yes, but it needs to end," Quistis said. "What if I'm called on a mission? My magic is too unstable right now."

"Well, recovering faster is entirely up to you," Dr. O'Neil said. "You need to confront your feelings, not shove them back inside when they reach the surface. The sooner you let yourself go and deal with everything, the sooner it will stop affecting you so much."

"Deal with it how?"

"Each person is different," the doctor said with a gentle shrug. "Some cry, some just ponder, some need to talk to a friend about it. The way depends on you and you alone."

"And what do I do in the meantime?"

"In the meantime... perhaps you shouldn't junction magic unless you absolutely need to," the doctor said, grinning.

Quistis laughed along. "Already done," she said. "After that incident in the training center I thought it might be a good idea not to junction anything unless I go on a mission. I'm empty right now."

"Good," Sascha O'Neil said.

"Would it be alright if we cut this a bit short?" Quistis asked, checking her watch. "Selphie asked for my help today to set up for a party."

"Unless you have anything else you want to say, you're free to go."

"No, I'm fine," Quistis said, smiling. "I'll see you next week."

"Take care," said the doctor, waving at Quistis as she stepped out the door.

The young doctor got up after taking one last sip of tea and began to clear out the desk. She was about to leave the office, when she noticed she had left Quistis's cup behind and needed to hand it over to the secretary before she left.

The moment she picked it up, she realized two things.

First, the cup was unusually heavy.

Second, it was completely frozen.

* * *

Seifer was certain no man had ever been prouder of his own pair of socks than he was right now.

B-Garden's renovated SeeD quarters apparently came with a smoke alarm in every single room. After almost finding out the hard way, he had spent the better part of his afternoon trying to find a way to fool it. Opening the window and smoking outside was always an option, but it was getting quite cold even for Fisherman's Horizon, Garden's current station.

Besides, outsmarting machines was always fun.

The result of a great deal of thinking had been to wrap his sock around the sensor. It had worked like a charm. He was now basking in his victory, staring outside the window while trying to decide what to do to stave off the boredom tonight.

Every now and then, he would see the odd recruit walking along the FH streets, looking tense, dirty and tired. He couldn't blame them; Fastitocalon Fish weren't exactly hard opponents even for rookies, but they were downright annoying. They would sneak up on you and bite the hell off your ankles, before you realized your opponent didn't lie to the back or to your sides, but below the ground. Digging them out of the sand was where the 'fun' began.

He grinned at the memories that came unbidden to his mind.

_Raijin, walking around the beach with five Fastitocalon Fish on his trail before realizing there was anything wrong. Skin as thick as scales, that oaf,_ he thought fondly.

The trip down memory lane was cut short when Seifer heard a discreet ding from the laptop on his desk; he had new mail. Taking one final, long drag, he put the cigarette out and walked up to the desk to see what the e-mail was about. As it turned out, he had just gotten a reply from G-Garden's central database; they'd sent back the files Squall had requested.

_Great, now I can leave first thing in the morning,_ he thought, and hurried to forward the mail to Squall. He clicked on the forward button, wrote down the address he had been given, and hit _Send_.

_**YOU DO NOT HAVE AUTHORIZATION TO CONTACT THIS ADDRESS**_

Seifer glared at the little pop-up window. _Oh, you have _got_ to be kidding me..._

Not in the mood to spend another listless day in Balamb Garden -FH wasn't exactly famous for its roaring nightlife- he decided to get this over with today and get ready to depart tomorrow. He stored the attached documents on a flash drive and threw a jacket on, deciding to head for the common room. If memory served, there was a printer and a fax machine there for public use.

Oh his way over, there were many hushed whispers as he passed by various cadets, but he simply ignored them. He made a beeline for the common room, not giving the slightest bit of attention to anything else. It was only 8:30, so there were still people up and about. He half-wished not to meet anyone till he got to the printer, but his excitement over leaving tomorrow kept him in good spirits.

Once in the printing room, he found a bored-looking cadet sitting behind the computer. He didn't even look up when Seifer entered, just gave him a rudimentary greeting.

"Hello, how can I help you?" he asked, not taking his eyes off the screen.

Seifer tossed the flash drive on the desk. "I need to print the documents in here."

"Okay," the boy said, and stuck the drive into a USB port without looking up yet. He hit _Print_ and left his seat to go get the papers. It was only when he returned, handing them along with the flash drive to Seifer, that he finally looked at him.

An expression of recognition crossed his features, but before he could say a word, Seifer slipped a ten gil bill on the desk, muttered "Thanks," and left the room. He was in no mood to face neither a kid scared shitless, nor the anger of someone still hung up on the incidents of the war.

His walk was decidedly more cheerful as he made his way over to Leonhart's dorm. He had only been in B-Garden for two days, but it was more than enough to bore him to tears and he couldn't wait to go back home. The instruction manual on the back of his door had been kind enough to inform him where 'The Commander' was staying 'in case of emergency', so he found his way to the dorm easily.

When he reached room _101A_, however, he nearly took a step back in alarm.

He could hear music from inside, and a great deal of noise. It sounded as if people were having a party in there, and he had to check the label on the door a fair few times just to make sure he hadn't mistaken it. As it turned out, not only did he have the right number, but a secondary label below it informed him he was standing outside _Commander Leonhart's_ dorm.

_Since when does Squall have parties?_ he wondered, and after a great deal of hesitation, he knocked on the door.

He heard the music being turned down a bit and a familiar voice yelled: "I'll get iiiiiiiiiiiiiit!"

The door was flung open and Seifer came face-to-face with Selphie. She was wearing a paper party hat and particularly festive-looking dress; it made Seifer feel very conscious of his shabby sweatpants all of a sudden. The red tinge on her cheeks suggested she'd had a fair few drinks so far. She looked quite cheerful, though the moment she realized who was at the door her expression changed.

"What are _you _doing here?" she said, a little too loudly.

Seifer couldn't decide whether her tone was of genuine surprise or accusation. Probably a bit of both.

"Uhh... I got some... documents. For Squall," he said, holding the papers up.

"Who is it, Sefie?" Seifer heard Irvine say, before the cowboy himself came to the door.

He was wearing a paper party hat over his usual one as well, and put his arm around Selphie affectionately before noticing Seifer.

"Oh," he said, surprised. "Hi."

_Oh right, it's November 24th today, _Seifer suddenly realized upon seeing him.

"Happy birthday," he said hastily, though not unkindly, eager to get back to his room. "Didn't know you were having a party here. I just came to give Squall these." He gave Irvine the papers instead. "He forgot to give me authorization to send them by e-mail."

"Oh, OK," Irvine said, glancing at the papers once. "And uhh... thanks. For the birthday wish."

Seifer waved a hand airily. Though he hated to admit it, Irvine was alright. He was one of the few people he might've felt comfortable talking to every now and then whenever he had to spend time in B-Garden. Perhaps it would have been a little easier to make conversation without the 'uhhs' and 'ummms' if Selphie wasn't glaring at him like she was about to bite his head off. He decided it was time to take off, and he made a move to leave, before Irvine called out.

"Hey uhh... A few of us gathered here. Big room and all," he said. "Wanna... uhhh... come in for a drink?"

Seifer blinked, not having under any circumstances expected an invitation. "No, thanks," he said. "Probably not the best idea..." he trailed off. He waved at Irvine and turned his heel, eventually disappearing behind the corridor.

Selphie wrapped her arms around Irvine's neck and closed the door with her foot. She pulled him down to whisper something about his present to his ear, then traipsed away to give Squall the papers Seifer had come to deliver. Irvine smiled at her departing form, though he was still a little dumbfounded by what had just happened.

"Who was it?" Quistis asked, coming up behind him.

"Seifer," Irvine said, turning to look at her.

Quistis's face mirrored his own expression of surprise. "Seifer?"

"Yeah, he came to give Squall some papers. He didn't know about the party," Irvine explained. "I, er... invited him in, but he said 'No thanks,' and left."

"Oh," Quistis said. "Well... that was nice of you either way."

"Yeah..." Irvine mumbled, looking thoughtful. "He wished me a happy birthday."

At this, Quistis looked even more shocked. "He knew it was your birthday?"

"That's exactly what I was wondering," Irvine said. "Weird..."

"Yeah..."

They stood in silence for a little while, both trying to make sense of the whole situation.

Irvine snapped out of it first, deciding not to ruin a good party mood with useless worrying. "C'mon, you owe me a dance," he said cheerfully, dragging Quistis over to the dance floor with a grin.

"_Owe_ you?" Quistis asked, chuckling.

She let Irvine carry her off into a dance, which Rinoa and Zell soon joined. She let go, enjoying this small moment of frivolity with her friends, not letting herself fret over ghosts of the past.

Still, her eyes wandered over to the door every now and then.

* * *

**A/N: **The hostility towards our hero won't last for long, never fear. But everyone needs to come to terms with everything before moving on, and it's going to take a while for some of them.

Got questions? Head over to the forum. I'm making a post with a few of my notes and you can ask anything that confused you about the chapter.

**04/10/2010 EDIT: No changes.**


	6. Chapter 5: Mater

**DISCLAIMER: **Seifer, Quistis and co are not mine.

**A/N: **Exams + job hunting = death.

But yay for another chapter done and yay for all your wonderful reviews! Thank you again to the older reviewers. Thanks and welcome to the people who discovered this a little more recently and were kind enough to drop a line.

A couple of notes for this one:

**a)** Props to anyone who recognizes where the constellation idea comes from. I would love if it belonged to me, but it doesn't. **b)** The 'Rank S' I've used in this chapter denotes someone even higher than Rank A, but it's only used for casters in my story. It stands for someone with great magical abilities. **c)** Bösendorfer is a famous piano manufacturer. Bösendurfer is my lame attempt at making a recognizable name non-copyright material. And finally, **d)** Monterosa exists as a name in the FF8 world (Monterosa plains or something), just not as a city.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 5:** Mater

* * *

_Mother  
Tell your children not to walk my way  
Tell your children not to hear my words  
What they mean  
What they say  
Mother_

_Mother  
Can you keep them in the dark for life  
Can you hide them from the waiting world  
Oh mother_

_**- Danzig, 'Mother'**_

_**

* * *

**_

_A party…_

Still awake at 2:40 a.m., Seifer lay on his bed staring at the ceiling, arms folded behind his head.

He didn't know exactly why seeing them having a party had felt so odd. It could be because part of him was still a little surprised at how those six had gotten so close. He had always imagined that they had been the ones who had grouped up to defeat Ultimecia simply because they were the best, not because they were friends.

_Friends… _

_I wonder how Raijin and Fujin are doing…_

…

_"Raijin… I think Seifer needs some air now."_

_**YES. PLEASE.**_

_Raijin loosened his grip, not looking particularly sorry, only a bit reluctant to let go. "Sorry, sorry, ya know," he said, and finally let Seifer's feet touch the ground again._

_Seifer clutched his chest, drawing big, frantic gulps of air. __**You bloody oaf… I missed you, too, but I'd like to keep my fucking lungs.**_

_Edea laughed, giving Seifer a hug of her own. A gentle one this time. _

_As Seifer put his arms around her, the frailty of her body hit him like a thunder. He had heard of Sorceresses becoming thinner and weaker after losing their powers. Matron's clothes hid it well, but the faint tremors of her muscles resonated through his body and cut into his chest like a thousand knives; even a soft hug was too much movement for her._

_"I'm glad to see you again," she said, and looked up at his face with a radiant smile._

_They had seen each other before, some time after the end of the war. Things had been much more awkward at that time, but Jonah had insisted he correspond with Edea on a frequent basis from then on. Something about 'catharsis,' he had said. _

_**Oddly enough, it worked**__, he thought, relaxing in Edea's arms. _

_And this was one embrace he wished would never end, but the mere thought of the effort she had to put into it, not to mention the effort to hide her discomfort, made him decide to break it first._

_His cheek brushed against her magnificent hair as he pulled back, and he caught a whiff of her familiar scent. He had never been able to describe her smell, even as a small child. __**You smell like… home**__, was all he could come up with. _

_"Me, too."_

_Edea pulled back as well, taking her seat on the chair out by the patio overlooking the beach. She motioned at both him and Raijin to sit down. Raijin looped his arm around Seifer's neck, still wearing a broad, cheerful grin._

_"Didja miss me and Fuj?" he asked._

_**A lot.**__ "Sure," he responded, shrugging. "Where is she, by the way?"_

_"She'll be here any moment. She always takes the kids down for a swim at this hour, ya know?" Raijin responded._

_"OK. I'll just wait for her, to say hello and all, and then I gotta go."_

_Raijin nearly knocked the table over as he stood up. "WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT? You're leaving already?"_

_Seifer barely caught the jug of lemonade before it spilled all over Matron. "Settle down, Raij. I can't stay; I just popped in to say hi."_

_"B-but... we haven't seen you in y—"_

_"I know, but I have to go. I need to get to Timber by afternoon," Seifer explained. "It took me ages to convince the pilot to take a detour all the way here. I can't stall the mission much longer."_

_Raijin looked remarkably like a giant toddler as he sat back down, arms crossed, mutinous scowl on his face. "That Jonah fellow is overworking you, ya know?" _

…

It was the price he had to pay for accepting Jonah's helping hand.

The man had promised to pull all strings in his disposal to keep him out of prison, but Seifer had to prove he was worth it. Friends were a luxury he could not afford. Not that he had that many to begin with.

Seeing the others so carefree had reminded him of good times with Raijin and Fujin. His team members were loyal to him alright, but they weren't friends. They worked together like a well-oiled machine by now, but it wasn't the same as fighting by Raijin and Fujin's side.

_Fuck that… Stop being a whiny brat,_ he chastised himself._ My life is fine as it is,_ he thought bitterly, and rolled over to his side.

_Go to sleep._

_

* * *

_

_Il y a longtemps que je t'aime  
Jamais je ne t'oublierai._

_

* * *

_

"Go on, admit eeeeet."

"I do. You throw the best parties'n Garden."

"Jus' Garden?"

"Gaia has never b'fore seen such manfigic—mafignic- fuck..."

"S' a diffitulc word..."

"Ma-gni-fi-cent parties. There!"

Selphie grinned and rolled over to wrap her leg snugly around Irvine's. She rested her head on his chest and let out a content sigh. It was freezing outside, even underneath the blanket they'd brought along, but Irvine didn't really care right now.

The party was long over, and after getting kicked out by Squall, they had decided they were too hyped up to go to bed. Irvine had suggested star-gazing. It wasn't exactly often that he had romantic outbursts like this one, so Selphie didn't spend a single second thinking it over.

He only hoped there weren't going to be any aircrafts landing in the docking bay tonight. He didn't think he had the strength to move a single inch at the moment.

_Squished by a jet... I could do worse,_ he thought, pulling the blanket up to cover Selphie.

Irvine wrapped one arm around her shoulders and placed the other behind his head. It was a rarity, getting Selphie to shut up and enjoy a silent moment, but aside from that, he had to admit... the closeness felt nice. He was smitten by Selphie, always had been, always would be, but sometimes, her energy was enough to drive a man insane.

He had been very surprised when she went along with the whole 'no commitments' suggestion regarding their relationship. He had heaps of fun with her, but going for the long haul at twenty seemed a little overwhelming and Selphie apparently agreed. The mere thought of what a committed relationship would be like with her gave him a headache.

But this... this was bliss. The cold air grazing his face, and a beautiful, amazing girl wrapped around his arms. Nothing complicated between them... Just them and the night sky. He gazed at the glittering constellations above them, eyelids drooping a little.

"I can never tell 'em apart," he said, voice lilting slightly from intoxication. "Y'know which one is which?" he asked her.

Selphie rolled over to her back, head resting in the crook of Irvine's armpit. "See that? Th' one that looks like a slowfnake?" she said, pointing at a specific spot in the sky.

Irvine squinted. "Uhh... nope."

"S' hard to spot at first," she said. "Cuz Hyne's constellashun is' brighter than th'rest. Lookfer a bright star in th'center an' five surroundin' it."

"What's a 'slowfnake', by th'way?" Irvine asked, chuckling.

"Shaddaaaaap," Selphie said, giggling. "Y'know whut I meant. Didja spot it?"

"I think so," Irvine said, squinting again. "The one that's below the other tha' looks like a jug?"

"Ya, tha' one's Lev—uhh... Laviathun."

"Leviathan?" Irvine offered, grinning.

"Thash the one. And the firs' one s' Shiva."

"Cool."

There was a song... a little nursery rhyme Matron had taught them a long time ago. It was a mnemonic rule to help them remember which constellation was which, so they could look upon them at night and pray to the Gods. As a child, he had found the idea of a pantheon charming; every virtue, every vice represented by a minor God and Hyne, the Creator, ruled above them all.

It surprised him that there were people who still considered the spirits Irvine now knew as Guardian Forces to be actual Gods. He had found it rather naive at first, believing in myths and legends, but he couldn't deny that the childhood memory of acting out those legends made him feel closer to the minor Gods than he had ever felt to Hyne.

_"Sefie, wha'cha playin' ?"_

_"WAR!"_

In their games, he had always been Sacred.

_"Minotaur and Sacred, the Brothers. Gods of the earth, steady and reliable, like a rock. Like you."_

_Like a rock,_ he thought, echoing Matron's words.

Why couldn't he remember the little song? He wanted to share it with Selphie, see if she remembered. He wanted to ask her why she had chosen Pandemona as a little girl.

_Shouldn't I be fickle like the wind? You were always more reliable than I have ever been. _

He opened his mouth to speak, but found that he couldn't. He suddenly regretted asking her about the stars in the first place. He didn't want to know why she had been Pandemona; he shouldn't. It would break the spell, taint their innocent little games with the probing, cold rationalization of an adult.

_The Children of Fate never make choices. It is providence that has brought us here. It is providence that Selphie should be Pandemona and I Sacred. It makes sense. Except it doesn't. None of this does. Does it?_

_...Holy fuckin' shit am I drunk. _

Selphie resumed her previous position and wrapped herself tighter around Irvine. "S' a little cold..."

Irvine rubbed his hand up and down her arm in an attempt to warm her up. "You wanna go back in?"

Selphie nodded.

"No sex on th'dockin' bay?" he asked, giving her what he thought was a very winning smile.

"Like you can geddit up in this tempr'atchure," Selphie teased.

"Well," Irvine said, withdrawing his arm from around her. "I'll consider it a challenge," he said, and reached down to his belt buckle.

Selphie let out a high-pitched giggle and slipped a hand down to stop Irvine from undoing his belt.

"Nooooo, I wanna fight natchuuuuuuuure," Irvine insisted, laughing alongside Selphie.

The girl straddled him, effectively putting a stop to his ministrations, but instead of looking bummed out, Irvine smirked. "Keep it up, I think m' winnin'," he said.

Selphie laughed and leaned down to gently bump her forehead against his. "Inside," she purred.

"Well, if you insist..."

* * *

"Weird names…" Xu muttered, looking over Squall's shoulder.

The morning that followed Irvine's party found the two looking over the profiles Seifer had printed for Squall.

The fact that Seifer was the leader of a team was in itself fishy, in Squall's opinion, and allowing five complete strangers to live in Balamb Garden wasn't his idea of a brilliant plan. He wanted to know as much about these five men as possible, though having no real names to go with was going to make things far more complicated.

It would've been easy to simply deny Seifer any right to work with his team, but Squall preferred to keep him as happy as possible, within reason. The less hostile he was, the less likely it was that he would be on his guard.

"I know," the Commander agreed. "Seifer said he wouldn't reveal their real ones, so I guess these are code names of some sort."

"Well, I'd like to ask Almasy a few questions either way," Xu said. "Where is he?"

"Getting ready to depart for G-Garden," Squall replied.

"So we're just letting him call the shots? I don't like this; we need to monitor him more closely."

"Well, someone is _supposed_ to be escorting him to the docking bay at the very least, but EVERYONE IS HUNG OVER!" Squall yelled, effectively waking up Zell, Irvine and Selphie, who had been dozing off on the table for the past ten minutes.

The three pretended to pay attention just long enough for Squall to stop glaring at their direction and resume his talk with Xu.

"How the hell is _he_ sober?" Selphie whispered to Irvine and Zell. "He drank nearly as much as we did."

"No, he didn't," Irvine said.

"Yes, he did!" Selphie insisted. "Every time I saw him wander around he was holding a beer in his hand!"

"Same one," Zell mumbled.

"Huh?"

"It was the same one all night long. Didn't even finish it in the end," explained Zell, rubbing his eyes.

"I can hear you whispering," Squall growled, frowning as he looked over the papers in front of him. "You're all demoted two ranks."

The threat didn't have the effect he had hoped it would. None of them seemed to be the least bit phased.

"Oh please," Selphie muttered. "You demote us every week. We'll regain the ranks on the next mission."

"Fine, then I'm giving the next mission to Quistis," Squall retorted. "Apparently, she's the only one who has enough discipline to stay sober!"

"That's not fair!" Zell exclaimed. "Quistis is already rank A!"

"Then I'll make up a new rank _just _for her: A+," countered Squall. "Shut your mouths and get to work."

"We've got work?" Selphie asked wryly.

"_Find_ something to do. _NOW_."

The three of them left the room, all the time muttering at the unfairness of it all. Squall thought he heard one of them whispering about him getting 'bitchier by the day.' He knew it was true, but he couldn't help it. Being so idle was finally getting to his nerves, and he was the one stuck with the paperwork while the rest got to attend Sphere games and chocobo races and got to organize parties. He didn't think _anyone_ was nearly as eager as he was for Cid to return.

Thankfully, he and Edea were scheduled to arrive this very afternoon.

"Look at this," Xu said, recapturing his attention. She was pointing at one of the files. "This 'Jiao Hu' guy is from Esthar. Heir to one of the aristocratic families, according to this. That should make it easy to track his family down."

Squall shook his head. "No good," he said. "Laguna once told me that back before Esthar shielded itself from the world, almost all aristocratic families tried to push their firstborn sons to pursue a military career; it was considered a great honor. He won't be the only one."

"But why mention it at all?" Xu wondered out loud. "If he were ever held captive by the enemy, they would definitely use this information against him."

"Well, these profiles aren't accessible by just anyone," Squall explained. "Our system is pretty secure as well, but Galbadia has always had the most well-protected database. If his profile were ever to be shown in any public place, it wouldn't contain half of what you can see now."

"A hacker, an explosives specialist, a martial artist, a gunner and a Rank S White Caster," Xu said, reading off of each man's profile. "And Seifer. What the hell does Jonah Meric want with a team like that?"

* * *

It was mid-day when the Galbadian aircraft reached its destination.

The moment his feet touched Galbadian soil, Seifer was immensely thankful. He had never been fond of airborne vehicles as it was, and the bad weather over Balamb had made the trip even less tolerable.

To make matters worse, he was still feeling a bit shaken up from this morning. He hadn't slept particularly well, and that eerie little song he'd heard in his dreams hadn't done much to help his mood. He remembered very vague images, nothing clear. The only thing that had stuck had been the song he'd first heard in Trabia.

"You look a bit pale," Jonah Meric said, greeting Seifer at the docking bay along with two SeeDs serving as his bodyguards; the two men saluted Seifer.

"Weather was bad over Balamb," Seifer explained laconically, slinging his backpack over one shoulder.

"Thunderstorm?" Jonah asked.

"No, the wind was going all crazy," Seifer said. "Anyway, I'm fine other than that."

The five men descended through the hatch and onto the top floor of Galbadia Garden. The two guards and the pilot hung back a little, letting Seifer and Jonah lead the way. It was a known fact among G-Garden SeeDs that their Headmaster trusted Seifer Almasy for matters which went beyond a regular SeeD's jurisdiction.

"How did the first meeting go?" Jonah asked.

_I've managed to piss off a powerful Sorceress, got invited for drinks by someone who tried to kill me once and no-one really wants me there. _"Okay, I guess," Seifer said, shrugging. "They weren't exactly friendly, as I told you they would be," he muttered.

"And our offer?"

"A few minor changes and a couple of requests," Seifer said. "Other than that, they're on board. We'll talk details in your office."

"Good job," said Jonah. "Now, what was this you mentioned about your team? I couldn't get a good reception when you called."

"Leonhart wants me to work there as a regular SeeD while negotiations are going on," Seifer replied, his tone bitter. "I told him I wouldn't do shit without my team."

"In those exact words?" Jonah asked, a hint of a smile dancing on his lips.

"More or less," Seifer said, grinning at him. "Can you allow that?"

"As long as your teammates wish to follow you, of course," Jonah responded.

"What about our last mission?" Seifer said, referring to the Trabia incident. "We didn't exactly get anywhere or find out anything new."

"That can wait for a bit."

"Can it?"

Jonah turned to Seifer and gave him a look that plainly stated they were not going to discuss this right here. Even though they walked a little ahead of everyone, the possibility of being overheard was not something he wanted to risk.

"How long are you staying?" Jonah asked.

"Not long," Seifer replied. "I'm expected back in a couple of days. And I need to stop by Deling City to pick up a few things before moving to B-Garden."

_Egad. Straight into the Marlboro's mouth._

"Have you informed your team about your plans?"

"Not yet," said Seifer, coming to a stop as he realized they had reached his dorm. He had expected to find himself standing outside Jonah's office. _He_ was the one who never stepped foot outside without an escort, after all. "I'll call them after I unpack to let them know they should be getting ready."

"You should know, they're in Balamb."

"Balamb?" Seifer asked, arching an eyebrow. "What the hell are they doing there?"

"Following up on a lead I received," Jonah replied. "They'll fill you in."

"Right. Do they need to report back, or…?"

"No, tell them to wait for you in Balamb. You can meet up and head off to Fisherman's Horizon together," Jonah said. "That's where B-Garden is currently docked, correct?"

Seifer nodded.

"Well then," Jonah said. "I'll let you unpack. You can give me your official report at 1600 hours. Dismissed."

Seifer gave Jonah a nod and a salute, then turned to unlock his door. Jonah's escorts gave Seifer another salute of their own and followed him down the corridor and out of sight.

* * *

Rinoa stepped out of the infirmary's restroom looking pale and clammy.

Dr. Kadowaki had been waiting for the girl outside the door ever since she had seen her cut an appointment short to race to the restroom, hand firmly clasped on her mouth. She gave Rinoa the one-over, frowning.

"Better?" she asked.

"I- yeah, better," the girl muttered, her hands shaking somewhat.

"You've never been particularly squeamish around blood," the doctor said astutely. "You barely touched the syringe and your face turned green."

"Wasn't the blood..." Rinoa replied, running a hand through her hair. "Sorry, it won't happen again."

"I wasn't scolding you," Dr. Kadowaki said. "I'm just a little worried. Are you sure you're feeling better? You can have the rest of the day off if you like, get some rest."

"No, it's not necessary, I-"

"I insist," said the doctor. "I hear Edea is returning today. You'll need to get some rest for your lesson with her."

"I guess," Rinoa mumbled, hugging her sides.

Perhaps Dr. Kadowaki had a point. Rinoa had been feeling a little under the weather lately and interrupting her lesson every minute to go puke her guts out wasn't her idea of an evening well spent. Besides, she would be wasting Edea's time when she had so many responsibilities and yet still managed to fit Rinoa's Sorceress training into her tight schedule.

Muttering another apology to Dr. Kadowaki, Rinoa retired to the supply closet to change into her daily clothes.

_What the hell is wrong with you?_ she chastised herself as she removed her lab coat. _You've seen blood before; you've seen torn limbs and magical burns, for Hyne's sake. A little blood shouldn't-_

_Blood._

The word rang eerily in her head. Hurried thoughts raced past her mind as she stood still for a few minutes, trying to make sense of the chaos in her head. When the dust settled, she knew.

_Blood... Why aren't I-? It's the 25__th__, I should've gotten it over two weeks ago..._

The young Sorceress froze on the spot, feeling a second wave of nausea approaching. She fought it down, only barely, and felt the ground give in beneath her feet.

"Steady," she whispered to herself.

She stood like that for what felt like a century, before there was a gentle rap on the door and she heard Dr. Kadowaki asking if she was all right.

Rinoa managed to shout back a reply and resumed putting her regular clothes on, as if snapping out from a trance. She picked her things up and was about to wrench the door of the closet open, when her eye fell on a shelf of white, rectangular boxes.

Her hand trembling, she pocketed a home pregnancy test and left the infirmary in a hurry.

* * *

"Feeling up for a mission?"

Quistis nearly fell off her seat in surprise. She hadn't participated in a mission for so long that the words sounded almost alien as soon as they left Squall's lips.

"Of course," she said, grinning. "Hyne knows it's been forever… I didn't know we had anything—"

"Don't get your hopes up," Squall said, giving her a sympathetic cringe. "It's nothing special."

_Way to kill my buzz,_ Quistis thought bitterly. Still, she had hopes it would be something even minimally challenging; Squall was known for underrating a mission's difficulty on occasion. "Let's hear it, then," she said.

"It's an escort mission."

"An escort mission?" Quistis repeated. "Who am I escorting? And where to?" _A mayor? A senator? Laguna, perhaps?_

A little color rose to Squall's cheeks. "You're escorting a Galbadia Garden SeeD from Deling City to Balamb, then to FH and over to Esthar to meet with us."

"I didn't know we were going to Esthar," Quistis said.

"We have undertaken another mission there. I'll explain later," Squall hurried to say. "Do you accept the escort mission?"

Quistis blinked. "Uhh… Can I get a few more details?" she asked, by now bewildered. Squall was laconic, all right, but not when it came to missions. He liked to be thorough and cover ever detail he deemed necessary. His reluctance to disclose anything was suspicious at best.

"What's there to say?" he said, shrugging. "It's a simple escort. You catch a train for Deling, contact the SeeD and return."

Quistis narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing Squall carefully. He was avoiding her gaze, trying to hide behind the file in his hands. The redness had reached his ears by now.

She had a sudden feeling she knew what she was about to hear, but hoped she was wrong.

"Squall," Quistis said slowly. "Who am I escorting?"

Silence.

"Squall…"

"It's Seifer, okay?" Squall snapped.

"I _knew_ it," Quistis retorted, pursing her lips. _Of _course_ it's Seifer. Dump the problem on Quistis's shoulders since no-one else wants to deal with it, isn't that right?_

"Do you, or do you not accept?" Squall said testily. "If you're not up for it, Xu has offered to go. Though quite frankly, I'd like to deal with as mellow a Seifer as possible when he returns and Xu certainly won't humor me."

"And why should _I_ humor you?" Quistis asked.

"Because you're used to dealing with Seifer; he was your student."

"I got fired because I failed to discipline Seifer," Quistis dryly pointed out.

Squall sighed. "Okay, the truth?"

"Please."

"Everyone else is on probation," Squall replied. "And I can't send a rookie in because I don't think Seifer's as clean as he appears to be. There's something… 'off' with this team of his. He might be up to something, and the only person left who I can trust is you."

"Oh gee, Squall, I'm touched," Quistis quipped. "It's so nice to know I'm your last resort."

"You're not," Squall groaned. "Come on, Quistis, don't make this harder than it already is. I can't very well send the others in when they got hammered last night. I need to at least _pretend_ I'm handling this well."

Quistis tried to glare at him, but found that she couldn't keep it up for long.

Squall was not meant to be in an executive position and it was killing him, she could see that much. She also couldn't help but feel that Seifer was already working his magic on them, causing resentment and dissent even when miles away from this Garden.

Still, it was a mission.

For a split second, she heard the voice of reason in her head, reminding her that her casting was not in optimal condition. She had yet to mention this to anyone beside her therapist, and she didn't have confidence she wouldn't mess things up if it came down to battle.

It felt like a shoulder angel – shoulder demon moment, yet all she could hear was the voice of the demon. _They're dumping this on you; they don't deserve the truth… Besides, it's only an escort mission. You won't need to cast a thing._

It wasn't a voice she gave into often, but it felt oddly gratifying to do so right now.

"Tell me about Esthar," she said, sighing.

"Do you accept the escort mission?" Squall asked hopefully.

"Yes. Now tell me why we're going to Esthar."

* * *

Selphie groaned and pulled herself away from the piano's sound board, nearly smacking her head against the lid in the process.

"Well, I know nothing about pianos," she said. "So I'd rather not touch it."

Lauranna Berg, Garden's resident pianist, bit her lip. "Do we have any technicians here who would know how to repair a piano?"

"Don't _you_?"

"This one isn't exactly a Bösendurfer, but it still costs a lot of gil," Lauranna replied. "I know how to repair it in theory, but I'm not getting my hands in there, I might wreck it."

Selphie sighed, taking a pad out from her pocket. Her friends thought the Garden Festival was nothing but a frivolity, a hobby for Selphie, but her responsibilities were, at times, never-ending. "OK, just tell me what's wrong with it and I'll try to find someone who knows what they're doing."

"You didn't notice the cracks on the sound board?" Lauranna asked, arching an eyebrow.

"I did, but I have no idea how to fix it, so tell me."

"Well, it takes a while, but it's salvageable," Lauranna said. "We need to dry the piano first."

Selphie looked up from her notes, blinking. "How do you dry a piano?"

"There are machines you can install to control the humidity," the girl went on. "After we get it down to twenty five, twenty percent humidity, we fill the cracks. Get the soundboard back to convex shape and presto, done."

Selphie scribbled everything down, her expression resembling that of a person being told to find the square root of pi without using a calculator. "O...kay..." she mumbled. "I assume the person who'll handle this will understand what the heck you're talking about? 'Cause I have to admit, I'm a little lost."

Lauranna nodded. "They will. Make sure you tell them we also need to remove the strings and have it restrung again when the soundboard is fixed."

"Will do," Selphie said. "Any idea how much this is going to cost?"

"Well, that depends on the technician, sorry," Lauranna replied, shrugging. "I do know the humidity control device costs at least 5000 gil. Could be more depending on the type and size of the piano, but I don't think ours will need one that costs more than 6000."

"6000 gil?" Selphie said, cringing.

Garden was doing alright for the moment; the sponsors were taking care of pretty much everthing. However, they were having trouble getting missions to undertake as of late, so their current quality of life was likely to take a turn for the worst sooner than anyone thought. Selphie realized this, and as much as she loved seeing the Garden Festival Committee's band get to perform often, she doubted anyone else would care about instrument restoration when they needed to spend their resources wisely.

"Yep, 6000," Lauranna repeated. "I suppose no-one told you guys, but pianos need to be carefully monitored at all times. The changes in the environment as we travel wreak havoc with it, so consider the humidity control device an investment. And hey, at least we caught it soon; could've been way worse."

"Duly noted," Selphie mumbled. "So when we get that fixed, you'll get working on Sir Laguna's welcoming march?"

"I still don't see why we have to compose something new," Lauranna said. "And in four days, no less."

_Because I need to somehow make 6000 gil, fast, and we can sell your composition,_ Selphie thought. _And because it's Sir Laguna, and he deserves something like this. And because Squall is pissed I got drunk and wants to punish me._ "Because it'll give us a chance to play," Selphie replied. "We haven't had a proper event in ages."

"A two-minute composition is hardly an event."

"It's not, but it'll be nice," Selphie went on. "We get to see the Archbishop up close, we'll all be dressed up and-"

"Okay, okay... But you'll need to contact Esthar to make sure they can lend us a piano," Lauranna cut her off.

"You don't think we'll be able to get this one fixed in time?" Selphie asked, crestfallen.

"We might, but even if we do, I can't play on this one."

"And why in Hyne's sweet name not?"

"Because it needs to be tuned," Lauranna replied, in a tone that suggested Selphie should've known.

"Don't tell me you can't tune-"

"Of course I can," Lauranna said, affronted. "But a piano needs to adjust to the new environment for four weeks before it can be tuned if you want it to sound good."

Selphie felt as if her eyes were about to fall out of their sockets. "You couldn't have led with that?" she said, exasperated.

Lauranna shrugged. "Sorry."

"So... we need to rent a piano."

"And fix this one at some point."

"Lovely," Selphie said under her breath, jotting the new information down.

"Ah..." the other girl said, suddenly scrunching her nose in distaste as she glanced past Selphie's shoulder. "You've got company. See you later," she said, and made her way back to the throng of people gathered by the stage of the quad, tuning their instruments.

Selphie turned around wearily, hoping she wasn't about to receive even worse news concerning the Esthar ceremony. Much to her relief, she saw Rinoa approaching.

"Oh thank _Hyne_," Selphie said, throwing her arms around the other girl. "Please tell me you're here to rescue me; I need coffee and a humongous donut. Preferably one with sprinkles."

Rinoa gave Selphie a simple pat on the back, but didn't return the hug as enthusiastically as Selphie would've hoped. She pulled back, about to complain, when she finally took a good look at her.

It wasn't unlike Rinoa to exaggerate about the rare fight with Squall, but Selphie could immediately tell this was different. The last time she had seen the young Sorceress look so ashen, they were about to enter Ultimecia's throne room.

"What's wrong?" she asked, putting her hands on Rinoa's shoulders. "You look-"

"This," Rinoa said, pulling out the pregnancy test from her coat pocket. She flashed the box at Selphie for a split second, then shoved it back in to make sure no-one else saw it.

Selphie felt as if someone had just clubbed her over the head. She didn't have time to lose it completely, though; her friend needed her to be the calm one, by the look of things. Eyes wide, she looked up at Rinoa, her clutch on the girl's shoulders tightening. "Are you sure?"

"No, not yet," Rinoa said weakly. "I'm going back to my dorm to take it now. Come with me? Please?"

"Yes, of course," Selphie said, nodding. "Let me just grab my stuff..." she trailed off, hurrying over to the bench she had left her coat and bag upon.

Rinoa didn't even wait for Selphie to get dressed; she just took off heading towards the exit. Selphie followed right behind, trying to pull her coat on as they walked. She finally caught up with Rinoa, placing a comforting hand on her back. They remained silent all the way to the dorm.

Selphie broke the silence just as the door closed behind them.

"Okay, talk," she said, taking Rinoa's hand. "What happened?"

"_Sex_ happened, Selphie," Rinoa said, glowering.

"Ha, ha," Selphie drawled. "I meant what made you think you are pregnant. You must've _just_ begun to suspect, otherwise you wouldn't have chugged beer after beer last night."

Rinoa let out a sigh and sat on the bed, hugging herself. "I've been throwing up all morning," she explained.

Selphie groaned audibly. "Seriously? C'mon Rinoa, I spent the whole morning bent over a toilet bowl, too; it's called a hangover."

"I'm late."

"How late?" Selphie asked.

"Two weeks."

Selphie shrugged. "Well... I can't say it's not suspicious, but a lot of things can mess with your cycle."

"I guess," Rinoa muttered. "But the throwing up thing? It's not just today. I've been feeling queasy for over a week now."

Selphie took a seat next to her friend. "Haven't you and Squall been using protection?" she asked tentatively.

"We have," Rinoa said. "We've been very careful, but it's not one hundred per cent safe."

_True, _Selphie thought, nodding. There was no point in questioning Rinoa any further. She had come at Selphie looking for help and support, not endless questions. "You ready?" Selphie asked, pointing at Rinoa's bulging pocket.

"No," said the Sorceress truthfully, taking the box out to stare at it. "_So_ not ready…" she muttered, and made her way over to the bathroom.

Selphie stayed in the room to wait for her friend. She took her coat off and folded it neatly across her lap, her mind racing. Within the span of a week, things had turned upside down. Garden was busy again, Seifer was back, they were getting dangerously close to losing their sponsors and now Rinoa might be pregnant.

_Feels like the Second Sorceress War all over again,_ Selphie thought. _But worse. Like we're trapped in a sick bureaucratic nightmare. Only with babies. Or not… Hopefully. What? Guh, I dunno... _

Rinoa came out of the bathroom a couple of minutes later. If it was humanly possible, she was even whiter than before. She glanced at Selphie once, then took a seat next to her again, wringing her hands.

"Well?" Selphie asked. "Are you-?"

"I just took it," Rinoa mumbled. "Needs a couple of minutes."

"Okay," said Selphie, gently patting Rinoa's shoulder. "We'll wait."

Time seemed to stretch on, every second lasting an eternity. Selphie tried to time it by counting heartbeats, but her heart seemed to have somehow slowed down.

Two minutes passed, and she turned to look at Rinoa. "It's time," she said softly. "Are you ready to find out?"

Rinoa shook her head, her lips tight. "I feel like throwing up," she said faintly.

"Do you want me to go check?" Selphie offered.

"No—Yes… I dunno…" Rinoa trailed off. "Yes, yes. Please."

"All right," Selphie nodded. "It's just—Y'know… this could be an important day in your life. Are you sure you want me to be the one to see it first?"

"I'm not keeping it," Rinoa whispered.

"Oh," Selphie said. "Well… If you're… Have you thought about it? I mean—"

"Can you see me as a mother?" Rinoa snapped. "I can't even take care of _myself_. I'm a Sorceress and I still need Squall to keep coming to my rescue."

"Rinoa—"

"No," Rinoa said firmly. "It's not time. I need to be able to stand on my own two feet first. I won't ruin an innocent baby's life just because I'm irresponsible."

"Don't be so hard on yourself," Selphie said gently, running a hand through Rinoa's hair. "You're only twenty, with the weight of something huge on your shoulders."

"Exactly," Rinoa said, nodding. "So I need to learn to handle it before I take responsibility over someone's life."

"Okay, okay…" Selphie said, trying to placate her. "So… should I check, or will you?"

"You," Rinoa replied, taking a deep, shuddering breath.

Selphie nodded and stood up, making her way to the bathroom. She found the test on the shelf by the sink, along with the box of instructions. She picked them both up, not looking at the stick, but instead skimmed through the short manual to know what to look for.

"Uhhh…" she said, loud enough so Rinoa could hear her from the other room. "Is it blue for pregnant and pink for not?"

"Yeah," Rinoa called back.

"Isn't it usually the other way around?" Selphie asked, puzzled. "I mean… pink seems more appropriate or something."

"Maybe the manufacturer is color blind, I dunno. And I don't care. What does it _say_?"

Selphie read the manual again and again, making sure she didn't have the wrong combination.

"Selphie?"

"Just a minute!" Selphie called, still feeling that pink would've fitted a positive result more than blue would.

Rinoa marched into the bathroom, no longer having the patience to wait for Selphie to tell her. She tried to wrench the stick out of her hands, but Selphie yanked it back and turned to look at the strip.

"Well…?" Rinoa asked.

Selphie swiveled around, a grin on her lips. "It's pink!" she announced, showing it to Rinoa. "You're not pregnant!"

Rinoa reached for the stick, eyes bulging. She stared at it for what seemed like hours, until a faint smile appeared on her face. "Oh, thank Hyne…" she said, breathing a sigh of relief. "How accurate are these things?" she asked, looking up at Selphie, anxiety still dancing in her eyes.

"The manual says they're pretty damn accurate," Selphie said, smiling.

"It actually _says_ 'pretty damn accurate'?"

Selphie rolled her eyes. "It says you should take a blood test to confirm, but it's pretty certain you're not."

"Okay," said Rinoa, and by now, she was smiling, too. "I should probably get a full body work-up anyway, to see if there's anything wrong with me."

"Are you sure the nausea and stuff weren't just because of stress?" Selphie asked. "It can happen."

"It might be, but I dunno," Rinoa said, shrugging. "I _have_ been feeling weird, I swear I'm not making it up. I don't know if it makes sense, but… I'm aware of my body now. More than I used to be. And something does feel off."

Selphie nodded, realizing it was pointless to argue. Rinoa might have valid reasons to be worried, but even if she didn't, getting a second opinion would calm her down. She was about to offer to walk Rinoa back to the infirmary, when her cell phone rang. She held up a finger to signal Rinoa to wait for a few seconds and then answered the call. "Hello?"

It was Irvine, apparently calling from Squall's office. He had barely finished his first sentence, when Selphie's face lit up. "We'll be right there!" she said, and hung up.

"Who was it?" Rinoa asked.

"Irvine," Selphie said as jumped up on her two feet and pulled her coat on. "He said Matron and Cid are back!"

* * *

Having had the Headmaster of Balamb Garden as your one time caretaker had its perks. Such as getting the cafeteria to reserve the _good_ hotdogs and convince them to stay open just for your sake for an extra two hours.

The small feast wasn't much, but it was a feast indeed by Garden standards, celebrating the return of Cid and Edea. The conversation mostly revolved around work and issues with the academy, but it was always a pleasant surprise to get a visit from the woman who'd raised them all.

Quistis's mood was only spoiled by the knowledge that she was leaving that very night for her trip to Galbadia to meet up with Seifer. He probably thought she didn't notice, but she saw Squall stealing glances at her every now and then, clearly feeling guilty about the chore he'd unloaded on her shoulders.

_Good; he _should_ be,_ Quistis thought, nibbling on a cold fry.

By the time they wrapped things up, it was already eleven at night and Quistis had to get ready for her trip; her ship was leaving port at one am.

When she'd first been told of her traveling arrangements, she was confused as to why she was going by sea and on such short notice, but news of the ongoing railroad strike in Timber had reached their ears. This was the only way to get to Galbadia at the moment, since most lines, both underground and not, went through Timber. The fact that Garden was leaving the very next morning for Esthar made the option of getting an aircraft impossible, and Quistis was now stuck with the only means left to their disposal; a commercial vessel leaving tonight from FH that would take a whole day to reach the western shores of Galbadia.

The thought of what awaited was enough to put a damper in Quistis's previously good mood, which was why she felt grateful and a little uplifted when Edea offered to help her pack and accompany her to the port to see her off.

At first she thought Edea had offered merely to cheer her up, but shortly afterwards, Quistis got the feeling the woman had something to discuss with her in private; she wasn't wrong. Conversation was casual while she packed, mostly questions about how personal life and work was, but Edea changed the subject soon enough when they were almost at the door.

Quistis had just picked up her whip's case and shown Edea out to the corridor. She was locking the door of her dorm, when she noticed Edea's eyes linger on the weapon case.

"Do you think you'll need your weapon?" she asked quietly.

Quistis shouldered her duffel bag and turned to look at the older woman, sensing she knew what Edea would want to talk to her about. "I hope not," she answered sincerely. "But it's a requirement to carry a weapon at all times during a mission."

"Even against another SeeD?" Edea said, walking alongside Quistis down the corridor.

The blonde stiffened. Hearing Seifer addressed as a SeeD still sounded terribly wrong and foreign to her ears. She didn't ask how Edea knew about her mission, even though nothing of the sort had been discussed at the table. "Well," she began, trying to find the words to best avoid an unnecessary lecture. "Squall seems to think Seifer may not be entirely honest with us and wants him to travel with an escort."

_More like a chaperone,_ she thought, but didn't voice it.

"You know," Edea said. "He _has_ changed. He's not the person he was when- When he was following... me."

"The fact alone that he made it to SeeD is a testament to that," Quistis joked, grinning.

Edea didn't see the humor in this. "I know it's... hard, to forgive and forget," she began.

_Oh Hyne no, not again,_ Quistis groaned inwardly. She had been hearing the same argument over and over again for two years now. _I'm convinced! If I can forgive you, I can forgive him, enough already!_

"But I was hoping you would all be able to forgive Seifer just as you have forgiven me," Edea said, for what must have been the millionth time these past two years. "They're different situations, yes, but Seifer deserves the chance to have a normal life, without facing hostility everywhere he goes."

"I agree," Quistis said, shrugging. "I won't hold any grudges against him, just as long as he doesn't make things harder for himself."

"I know you will, Quistis," Edea said, beaming at her. "It's the others I'm worried about."

"I know Irvine is fine with the situation," Quistis said, making her way up the stairs to the elevator. She pushed the call button once.

"And this is precisely why I want you and him to try and help both parties make amends," Edea said, finally divulging the reason she'd offered to see Quistis off.

The two women remained silent all the way up to the second floor. Quistis realized Edea was probably giving her some time to digest the information, which was welcome; this wasn't exactly an easy request.

By the time Quistis spoke again, they were already walking across the intricate bridge FH workers had constructed to help Garden students disembark when they docked. "Matron," she said. "It's easy for me and Irvine to forgive simply because we didn't have nearly as much done to us by Seifer as the rest did. I'm fine with it, I really am, but I can't force everyone else to see things my way, you know that."

"I know it won't be easy," Edea said. "But it's an important step you all need to take to move on. I can't ask Irvine directly because of his relationship with Selphie, and like you said, everyone else still holds a grudge."

_I bet if I was dating Zell you wouldn't be asking,_ Quistis thought bitterly.

"Besides, Seifer likes you," Edea added. "He always has."

At this, Quistis did a double-take. _No, he doesn't! He thinks I'm mediocre and the only reason I was spared a good amount of his pranks was because he never paid any attention to me; in Seifer-ese that translates into not getting pranked and teased._

"Matron, I really don't think-"

"Quistis, _please,_" Edea said, taking a hold of Quistis's hand to pull her into a stop. "You're my only hope. I love every single one of you, Seifer included, and if I don't ask you to do this, I know we will all regret it for the rest of our lives."

Quistis sighed, turning to look at Edea. "You know I'd do anything for you," she said. "But please understand that it's a tall order, and despite my best efforts, it could turn out to be a disaster."

"I know," Edea said, nodding. "I just want you to _want_ to do this."

_(I want you to __**want**__ to do this.)_

_(But I do.)_

_(You're already sacrificing too much for me. Not this as well.)_

_(My life, my choices.)_

_(You can have both.)_

_(No, I can't. I choose you.)_

_(You shouldn't __**have**__ to choose.)_

_(But I am.)_

_(...Promise me you won't regret this.)_

"Quistis?"

She heard Edea's voice as if it were coming from a distance.

"I do, I promise," Quistis said, her own voice sounding like she wasn't really here, but far away, back in the darkness, with the two strange voices, where everything was calm, serene, warm.

All of a sudden, she was in Edea's arms, being hugged tightly. The world was cold and hard again, and color had returned to her eyes. "Thank you," the older woman said gratefully, hugging her even more tightly. "I thought you were going to say no; you didn't say a word for two whole minutes."

"No, no... I promise," Quistis mumbled, feeling a little faint and grateful for Edea's steady embrace.

It wasn't until Matron was back within Garden and Quistis was boarding the ship that it dawned on her she had agreed to perform nothing short of a miracle, as well as the fact that she had zoned out without even trying to, or at the time realizing she had.

She didn't visit her tiny cabin until the early hours of the morning, having stayed up on deck to gather her thoughts and try to focus on the mission at hand.

The cool night breeze had nursed the feeling of uneasiness tingling beneath her skin, and by the time she got to her bunk, she wasn't worried about Seifer and her mission.

She closed her eyes and hugged her pillow, trying to go to sleep. A nagging little part of her brain was trying to tell her something important had happened, something she shouldn't overlook, but if asked the following morning, she wouldn't even remember blacking out during her conversation with Edea.

The waves rocked the ship like a cradle, lulling Quistis to sleep.

* * *

"Did poor Quistis really have to leave tonight?" Rinoa asked, settling under the blankets of Squall's bed.

"She has a long way to go from here to Monterosa, so it's best she sleeps for the biggest part of the journey," Squall replied, pulling his shirt off.

Rinoa watched him strip down in silence. Idly, she wondered how on earth he could sleep with barely any clothes on, but the Commander's room, she had noticed, was a little warmer than most. She was used to sleeping in pajamas or sweats and even though she kicked the heavy covers away every night at some point, it was a habit she couldn't change.

She scooted back to make room for Squall, when she saw him make his way to his desk and pick up a manila folder.

"Oh, you're kidding," she groaned. "You're not coming to bed?" she asked, a little hurt that he was going to work late at night when they had barely seen each other all day.

"I am."

"Can't the folder sleep on its own bed?" she asked wryly, resting her chin on her balled fist.

"It won't take long, I promise," Squall said, slipping under the covers. He gave her a quick peck on the forehead and tugged the folder open on his lap.

"I'll bet," Rinoa mumbled under her breath, having heard this promise many a night before.

"It's just a couple of contracts to sign, I swear," Squall said earnestly. "I would've taken care of them this afternoon, but Cid and Edea came."

Rinoa wasn't convinced, but she stopped pouting either way, sitting up to rest her head on Squall's shoulder and have a look. Her eyes skimmed through names and terms, not really reading any of it. Squall was nearly done when something caught her eye.

"Jonah Meric?" she wondered out loud.

"Hmmm?" Squall said, turning to look at her. "What?"

"Jonah Meric," Rinoa repeated. "You're in business with him?"

Squall blinked. "He's the new Headmaster of Galbadia Garden," he said. "Why? Do you know him?"

"Don't sound so surprised," Rinoa said, rolling her eyes. She had little to do with SeeDs except for her choice in friends and her work at the academy's infirmary, but it was annoying how everyone kept forgetting she knew a thing or two about the military.

"Well, sorry," Squall said. "But I've heard very little about this guy and only bothered to after we went into negotiations. I didn't think anyone knew him beforehand."

"Did your research happen to tell you he was a Major General in the Galbadian Army?" Rinoa asked.

"Yes."

"From to 4994 to 4999?"

"Yeah, why do you ask?"

"Do you really not see where I'm going with this?" Rinoa asked, arching an eyebrow.

Squall shook his head.

"My dad is a General?" she said, sighing. "And has been one for eight years now?"

"Oh!" Squall said, finally understanding. The expression on his face only infuriated Rinoa further. "So you know him?" he asked eagerly.

"Well, not personally," Rinoa replied. "We've met maybe once or twice. But I do know _of_ him. My dad used to talk about him all the time those five years he was a Major."

"Major General," Squall corrected.

"Yes, I know the difference, Squall," Rinoa said pointedly. "I just shortened it for-"

"Sorry, sorry. So what do you know about this guy?"

"Well... there were some... rumors," Rinoa said.

"Rumors?"

The fact that she now had Squall's absolute, complete attention was both a little gratifying and a little insulting. "About his methods," she replied. "My dad always supported him and said his subordinates were very loyal to him, but he got into trouble quite often. Some would take it as far as court-martial, but he was never found guilty of any of the accusations, never punished. At least not severely, or I would've heard about it."

"Your father told you all this?" Squall asked, obviously surprised that Rinoa's introverted father would have been so open about his line of work with his young daughter who detested violence.

Squall and her father didn't exactly know each other well; they had only met once post-war in the context of 'the Father' and 'The Boyfriend,' but it wasn't hard to see that Fury Caraway was not a man who shared much.

"Well, no," Rinoa said. "But he was called to testify on Meric's defense very often, and I heard a few things he said on the phone, so I put two and two together."

"I see... So you don't know anything particularly sinister about Meric?" Squall asked, looking a little disappointed that this was all Rinoa had to share about the mysterious man.

"I do know one thing."

"What's that?"

"He just sort of... appeared out of nowhere," Rinoa explained. "He was in some mercenary force as a young man, then ended his career without a warning and just vanished. He reappeared a few years later, joined the Galbadian army and made his way up to Major General. No-one really knows much about why he retired so early or what he did, but there was speculation."

"You figured all of this out from little things your father told you?" Squall asked in disbelief.

"Well... No, I heard that part elsewhere. You'd be surprised just how much you can learn in changing rooms," she said, grinning.

"Changing rooms?"

"Yeah, when me and my dad had lunch at the country club," Rinoa said, avoiding Squall's gaze as she said those last two words. "We'd pretty much spend the whole afternoon there and while he golfed, I went to the gym. Back in the changing rooms, I heard gossip on every single event that had taken place that week, from petty things to serious political matters. All courtesy of the wives of every important person in Deling City. See, they didn't think a little girl was going to understand what she's heard, let alone go blabbering about it," Rinoa finished, mischief dancing in her eyes.

It wasn't exactly undercover ops, but Rinoa had learned more about politics in that country club than school had ever been able to teach her.

"Wow," Squall said, impressed. "So the gist is that Meric was unconventional at best, possibly involved in something secret at worst?"

"That would be my guess, yeah."

"Huh..." Squall said, pausing for a minute to think. "Sounds like the kind of person Seifer would look up to."

Rinoa frowned. "What does Seifer have to do with all this?"

"Well, Meric is his superior, for one thing. But you should've heard him talk about the man, Rinoa... I'd even go as far as to say he respects him."

"Why do all of you think of Seifer as some sort of rogue, petulant child?" Rinoa asked. She wasn't feeling crazy about Seifer at the moment, but it had always made her wonder how everyone seemed to have an only partly true idea of what Seifer was really like.

Squall stared at her. "Because he _is_."

"He's more mature than you think," Rinoa said matter-of-factly. "Just... slightly idealistic. Maybe a little too much for his own good."

Squall kept his gaze on her, not speaking. Rinoa turned to look at him and recognized his expression at once. It was the kind of look he gave her when he wanted to say many things, but kept quiet both out of habit and out of tact. She had worked no small wonder concerning the number of words Squall chose to use in everyday conversations, but he wasn't quite at the place where he always said what was on his mind yet.

Rinoa found that she was in agreement, for once. Talking about Seifer made her tense, and she had had a nerve-wracking day as it was.

"I don't want to talk about Seifer anymore..." she said, yawning. "Are you done with this?"

"Almost," Squall replied, going back to his paperwork as if nothing had just transpired.

Rinoa watched him for a couple of minutes, toying with the idea of talking to him about what had happened this morning. For a second, she feared he could hear what she was thinking, but she had made no attempt to communicate with him telepathically.

It was a joyous day when they'd both been informed by Edea that their bond didn't mean they would hear every single thing the other person thought, unless they tried to reach out to one another, or when their minds were 'open', as the ex-Sorceress had put it. There had been a few uncomfortable truths they'd both found out about each other up until they learned they could control it, and the news came as a huge relief.

Some things were better left unsaid, and right now, Rinoa couldn't agree more.

_I could've been pregnant,_ she thought. _Would that have scared you? I know it scared _me_... If you could hear my thoughts right now, how would it make you feel?_

_If you knew I relish the moments when you take me seriously, like you did just now, would you try to make that happen more often?_

_I was terrified today, and I had to run to Selphie for help. Part of me wishes it could have been you, and another hates myself for not having done this on my own. _

_Do I depend on you too much?_

_Do you hate me for it?_

_Do you really love me?_

_Squall... I love you._

Squall looked up from the documents in his lap and gave her one of his rare smiles, the kind reserved just for their private moments.

_I love you, too_, he thought, and it reached her.

* * *

It was nearly eleven am on November the 27th when Quistis finally arrived in Deling City.

The ship she'd boarded in Fisherman's Horizon had traveled through the night and the following day to Monterosa, a small town in western Galbadia, used primarily as a port to move convicts to the desert prison and raw materials to the –now destroyed- missile base.

The train from there took her to Deling City, her final destination. It had been a long, tiring trip, and Quistis wasn't very thrilled at the prospect of jumping into yet another train soon, accompanied by Seifer.

As soon as she boarded off the train, she made a beeline for the restroom to freshen up and change her clothes.

When she stepped outside the stall, she thought she caught the familiar sideways glance of someone who was on the brink of recognizing her. Then again, the girl she'd run into left without saying a single word, so she may have been mistaken.

Nevertheless, Quistis decided to wear her hair down, since her normal hairstyle of choice had become too recognizable. Not to mention copied.

_"Tired of your old look? Are you in awe of Quistis Trepe's golden locks? Envious of Selphie Tilmitt's signature bob? Never fret! Their look can be yours for only 199.95, aaaaaaat... SHEARS! Because haute coiffure is only a phonecall away!"_

Selphie had laughed herself silly the first time she saw another girl sporting 'the Selphie.' And then recoiled in horror when she saw the same haircut on a man. The annoying commercial had become a little more tolerable, Quistis thought as she checked her reflection on the mirror, by the mere memory of Selphie's reaction.

She left the restroom feeling a little less worn out and stepped out from the train station into the light.

The air, usually heavy with smog in the Galbadian metropolis, was a little fresher in the morning. She had mercifully avoided the nine thirty rush hour –Nine thirty stampede, Rinoa called it- though the streets were still crowded with people of all ages and ethnicities, tourists and locals.

The weather was cold, but it was a lovely November day. There were hardly any clouds in the sky and the big city felt inviting to explore, smell, taste. Quistis had the sudden urge to throw caution to the wind and just go have a cup of coffee and a world renown Galbadian pretzel at a local coffee shop. She had never really seen Deling City properly, since every single mission that had required a trip to Deling, including this one, had barely lasted a day.

_Get in fast, get out fast,_ Quistis thought with a sigh, and made her way over to the bus stop.

The slightly unfriendly clerk at the ticket stand informed her in thick Galbadian accent that the address she was looking for belonged to one of the ritzier neighborhoods of the city. Quistis asked again to make sure she'd heard right, and got the same response. The clerk went on to say that the underground was her best option to get there fast, but having the rest of the trip in mind, Quistis thanked the woman and hurried to the car rental.

Ten minutes later, a discreet navy car sped past Theodore Wimbly boulevard, Quistis in the driver's seat.

The ride, though long, was enjoyable. Every now and then, Quistis would wistfully stare outside the window, wondering what it would be like to live in such a big city. Her life would have to be radically different to allow for something like this. After all, a military career for people like her was not something they chose; it chose them, instead, and eventually became a way of life.

If things had been different, perhaps she could've been one of the young people she was just now watching on the streets. As she waited for a traffic light to turn green, a girl of twenty years or so caught her eye. She had a large book and notebook in one hand and was talking to what was most likely the owner of a grocery store.

The light turned green and Quistis sped away, the girl lingering in her mind.

Perhaps she was a student, Quistis thought, living in a tiny, but well-cared for apartment. She would have odd neighbors, like an old lady with many cats on one floor, a noisy young couple on another, and a fellow college student who she'd flirt with every time they ran into each other at the elevator. She would be an only barely competent cook, but she'd be experimental all the same, asking her friends to be her guinea pigs to test the results of her culinary endeavors. She would have a job, one that had her working just enough to be able to pay the bills and afford something nice every now and then, but didn't interfere with her classes much. She would be a little poor, but she'd be happy in the way most people who struggled to make a living while dreaming of soaring onto higher planes were.

_She would be happy,_ Quistis repeated in her head, adamant that the girl who had chatted to the man in the large white apron while smelling the apple in her hand with a smile could be nothing less. _She would be happy. She would never know carnage and war._

_"TURN LEFT TO BAKER AVENUE," _said the mechanized voice of the car's built-in GPS system, bringing Quistis out of her reverie.

She blinked, momentarily trapped between reality and a fantasy in which she sat on the ledge of a window in her made-up apartment, watching the rain fall. She shook her head, then followed the voice's order and took a left turn, keeping an eye on the electronic mini-map on the car's panel. 24 Chevalier Street, her destination, should be right around the next corner…

_"TURN RIGHT TO CHEVALIER STREET."_

_There we go, _Quistis thought. _Twenty four, twenty four… Ah, there it is._

She came to a stop outside a particularly fancy-looking building and switched the engine off. She put her long, woolen jacket on, slipped her weapon in a discreet scabbard hidden under the coat, and stepped outside, locking the car as she scrutinized the building.

It seemed to be about seven stories high, with pristine cream-colored walls and elaborate black railings on each balcony. She didn't doubt Seifer's salary was high enough to afford this, but she had to admit, she didn't expect him to have a particularly refined taste in anything, much less his residence. This looked like the kind of building where Deling City's upper class lived, not a well-paid mercenary.

The neighborhood was quiet and beautiful. She assumed it was full of green in spring, though it looked quite as charming when clad in shades of brown, red and purple, appropriate to the season. It had its own market, stores that Quistis assumed held delicacies from all over the globe, and beautiful little cafeterias with intricately carved wooden signs.

She could hear the laughter of children nearby, which made her assume there was a park in the vicinity.

Again, she was struck by the oddity it was that Seifer, of all people, lived in a neighborhood that seemed to be tailor-made for rich families.

Shaking her head in disbelief, she made her way over to the entrance, and sure enough, there was a concierge behind the desk in the foyer. She tried not to stare and make it painfully obvious that she had never even come near such a luxurious residence, but it was futile. Her eyes swept the place quickly, unable to stop them from looking like they belonged to a child in a candy store instead of a grown woman. The floors of the foyer, she saw, were all marble and as clean as those of a hospital, without the sterile smell. The desk was a deep, rich red, probably mahogany. There was a faint aroma of fresh flowers hanging in the air from the porcelain vase standing on that very desk.

"Good evening, Miss," the concierge said, beaming at her. "How can I help you?"

Quistis approached the desk, still glancing at her surroundings curiously. "Good evening. I'm uhh… here to see Seifer Almasy," she said, feeling ridiculous even as the words left her mouth.

"Ahhh, the Balamb Garden representative, of course," said the man, smiling still. "Mr. Almasy told me I was to expect someone. May I see your SeeD ID, please?"

Quistis withdrew a card from her jacket pocket and slipped it on the desk. She wondered whether the man had any sort of way of identifying a genuine SeeD ID. An impostor could've easily walked in with a well-crafted fake identification.

Much to her surprise, she saw the concierge slip the card through a small scanning device, identical to the one used in Gardens and Council meetings. She couldn't help but feel a little jealous at the trouble G-Garden had gone to, to ensure Seifer lived in luxury _and_ safety. Better yet, she was surprised he was allowed to have living quarters outside of Garden at all.

There was a faint 'bleep,' assuring the concierge that the ID was genuine. "All clear Miss…" he began, reading the name off the screen of his computer. "Trepe…?" he said, his eyes widening slightly. "SeeD Quistis Trepe?" he said, turning sharply to face her. "My deepest apologies!" he hurried to say, the familiar look of recognition dawning on his face. "I didn't recognize you! I've only seen pictures of you in your uniform and with your hair up—"

"There's no need for an apology," Quistis cut him off hastily, smiling. Her hands went automatically to her loose hair. She preferred to wear it down when she was out in non-official business. People had a harder time recognizing her when it was down, much like the concierge. "Which floor is S—Er, Mr. Almasy on?"

"Penthouse," said the concierge.

_Oh come on, now you're just making things up, _Quistis thought. _Penthouse?_

"I'll have to escort you, I'm afraid. I'm the only one who has a key for the penthouse besides him."

Quistis nodded and pocketed her ID, waiting as the man put up a sign informing people he would be right back and left the desk, leading her to the elevator.

The ride up was slightly awkward. Quistis tried to concentrate on the tinny music and pretended not to notice the man standing rigid next to her, stealing glances every other second. The moment they reached the penthouse, she was grateful to be rid of him.

The doors slid open and the concierge spread his arm forward to show her in. She gave him a curt nod in thanks and stepped inside Seifer's apartment.

Like the rest of the building, Seifer's place was far more lavish than she would've expected.

The furniture was modern, relatively minimal, but it still looked a bit much for someone who had spent most of his life inside a drafty dorm room. Subconsciously, she thought that perhaps it was time to splurge a bit; she had a fair amount of money deposited and she could afford to spoil herself a little every now and then. Though what she was looking at right now was probably taking it a little far.

_Always have to be doing something BIG, right, Seifer?_

The man himself was nowhere to be seen, but she could hear noise from one of the rooms inside. She decided to look around a bit before calling out for him.

The apartment had very few walls. It looked more like a loft to her. There were only two rooms separate from the rest of the place, which were probably the bedroom and bathroom. The kitchen and living room were one big, open room split in two, the latter situated by the balcony. The TV was turned on but on mute, and there was music playing. Just a random Deling City radio station, judging by the voice interrupting the song every now and then. Suddenly curious, she made her way over to the shelves by the TV, wanting to take a look at Seifer's CD collection.

She didn't know most of the artists on the covers, but she recognized a couple of names. She assumed it was mostly rock music, judging by the cover artwork, which was the only expected thing so far.

All of a sudden, her body tensed up in alarm. Something brushed by her ankles and she was about to reach for her weapon, when she heard a soft meow coming from the floor.

There was a cat rubbing its head against her ankles.

A very cute, very fluffy cat.

She was stunned for a fair few seconds. Her initial thought was that it was a stray, but the cat was too well cared for, not to mention tame, to think that it might've just found a way in. Quistis knew nothing about cats so she couldn't really speak for the breed, but the animal had long, shiny white fur, brilliant blue eyes and a meow that could melt ice with its sweetness. It won her over within seconds, and before she knew it, she was kneeling down on the carpet to pet it.

It dawned on her right then that Seifer had a _pet_.

He didn't really look like the kind of person who would keep one, and she remembered quite distinctly that he had an aversion for dogs, in particular. As her fingers slid through the soft fur, she noticed that the cat was wearing a little blue collar with a name tag on it. She was about to read the cat's name, when…

"Hands behind your back."

Quistis froze on the spot. She hadn't heard anyone come in and as her mind raced to figure out the best possible course of action, she realized she recognized the voice.

Before she had time to say anything, she heard the cock of a gun clicking.

"_NOW_," said Seifer.

"Relax, you're not being robbed," she said, sighing. "I'm going to turn around now. Slowly."

She turned her head first, to let him know who it was, before getting off her knees to stand up. "Honestly, like anyone was going to spend time petting your cat before ambushing you," she said, arching an eyebrow.

Seifer spent a fraction of a second studying her face, before his facial muscles relaxed. "Oh. It's you."

* * *

**A/N: **Methinks it's time for some real Seifer/Quistis interaction ;) Coming up in the next chapter!

**04/10/2010 EDIT:**

**- 2****nd**** scene, Irvine remembers a nursery rhyme from his time in the orphanage and the games of their childhood.**

**- Changed General Caraway's name from 'Warren' to 'Fury,' since I found out that's what's canon. Yeah, I know. **_**Fury**_**. Wow xD**


	7. Chapter 6: Ab Asino Lanam

**DISCLAIMER: **Square's, not mine.

**A/N: **As promised, here is a chapter full of S/Q interaction ;) A couple of notes:

**1)** Quistis talks about accents early on in the chapter. Think of the Balmish one like regular American accent, whereas the Galbadian one is British. As the case is pretty much anywhere, the accent varies greatly according to the region. Here are the regional associations in my story:

**Deling City** – "The Queen's English" (Rinoa)

**Timber and the midlands** – Brummie

**Dollet **– Cockney and French/Trabian (the bilingualism is explained in the chapter)

**Winhill and the South** – Geordie (Irvine)

Seifer's accent is a mix of Deling City and Balamb's accents.

**2)** The alcoholic drinks mentioned in this chapter (Sylkis and Reagan) are canon. You can find out which is which if you talk to the 'Drifter' in the Timber pub who's blocking the exit to the alley.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 6:** Ab Asino Lanam

* * *

_"Friendship is a slow-ripening fruit." __**– Aristotle**_

_"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: _ _if there is any reaction, both are transformed."__** – **__**Carl Jung**_

_**

* * *

**_

Despite the look of recognition on Seifer's face, he had yet to lower his gunblade.

For a few silent minutes, Quistis feared that Squall had been even more spot-on than he thought; Seifer had been planning this all along and would now surely dispose of her without so much as a blink.

Her weapon was in its holster, and she doubted she could pull it out before Seifer sliced her throat open.

She felt her stomach churn, Edea's words at the docks of FH ringing in her head.

_"You know, he _has_ changed. He's not the person he was when- When he was following... me."_

Quistis glanced down at the tip of Hyperion, less than an inch away from her chin; it was close enough to touch the fibers of her black turtleneck. The sword had been polished to perfection and she could see her reflection staring back at her. At the very least, she was glad she didn't look scared.

She looked up to meet Seifer's gaze again. His hand was as steady as a surgeon's, and his eyes were unreadable.

At long last, just as she about to become convinced she was right to suspect him, he lowered his arm.

Quistis let out a breath, giving him a hard look. "Decided against killing me?"

Seifer rolled his eyes. "Yes, because _that_ would've been smart; getting all of B-Garden and your groupies on the warpath. I just didn't recognize you at first and you didn't say anything when you came in; I assumed someone had broken in."

As he spoke, Quistis noticed something she hadn't when he'd first showed up in Balamb Garden; his accent. While Balamb and Galbadia were the only two continents where Balamese was spoken as a native language, there were vast differences in accent, slang and spelling. For as long as she had known Seifer, he'd always had a Balmish accent, but apparently, living in Galbadia had changed that.

Unfortunately, the resulted effect was a bastardized Galbadian accent; she had spent enough time in G-Garden to know what the natives truly sounded like. What was worse, Seifer had opted for the slightly more refined Deling dialect, instead of, say, Irvine's southern twang that seemed to roll off the tongue in a more laid-back manner.

Quistis decided to file this under 'Things to humiliate Seifer with when appropriate' for future use.

"We saw each other two days ago," she said, arching an eyebrow. "I don't think I've changed that much."

"Hyne, drop it already," Seifer said with a groan, but his piercing gaze remained on her.

Feeling a little exposed and awkward by the ongoing scrutiny, Quistis returned the stare. He didn't look as if he was suspecting her of anything or planning something sinister; he just looked as if he was indeed caught by surprise to see her and trying to work something out. She vaguely wondered if Squall had made a call to let him know he should have been expecting her.

He wasn't even dressed to travel yet; he wore a nondescript white shirt and gray sweatpants, which probably meant he was still packing.

After a fair few minutes of openly staring at her, Seifer seemed to realize he was being rude. Either that or he grew tired of it. "I didn't actually expect a top-rank SeeD to come as the _escort_," he said, and tugged his gunblade's safety back on. It amazed her how he could compliment and humiliate her within the span of a short sentence. "Who did you manage to piss off?"

"No-one," Quistis replied, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "It's actually all about who I _didn't_ manage to piss off."

Seifer arched an eyebrow at her. "What?"

"Never mind, long story," she said, waving a hand airily.

"OK," said Seifer, and fell silent again, only this time he directed his eyes at nowhere in particular, making a clear attempt to look anywhere but straight at her.

"So..." Quistis began, searching for something to say to break the ice. "Nice place you've got here."

"Thanks, but it's not my apartment."

"Uhhh..."

"It's Jonah's," he explained. "I just... Well, I spend a lot of time in Deling City, so I stay here often."

It was unexpected enough to learn that Seifer respected one of his superiors, but actually living in the man's apartment? Quistis had spent half her childhood riding on Cid's shoulders at the beach, but it had taken her years to finally be able to call him by his name without any sort of title attached to it in front of others.

Then again, Seifer had always been shameless.

"And the cat?" Quistis asked, glancing back once to smile at the animal; it was curled up on the couch, licking one of its paws.

"Not mine. Actually... not Jonah's, either. No idea who he belongs to, but Jonah's been letting him stay here for the past few months."

"Right," Quistis said, nodding.

As she had feared, they'd run out of small talk ten minutes into the journey. And they had hours of travel ahead of them. _Lovely,_ she thought.

"Have a seat," Seifer said, motioning at the couch. "I'm almost done."

"Thanks," said Quistis. She took her gray woolen coat off and moved over to the couch. She laid it down neatly on the cushion beside her and continued to inspect the apartment as Seifer retreated back to his room to finish up packing.

The cat sat up and came over to curl into a warm little ball of fluff on her lap, eager for more petting. Quistis indulged it, and her fingers went back to the name tag she had been about to read before Seifer had come in. It read 'Figaro.'

_Figaro, eh?_ she thought. _I was half-expecting it to be Whiskers. Or Fluffy._

Figaro rubbed his head against her palm, starting to purr. Quistis smiled at him, realizing that she had never before considered whether she was a cat or a dog person. Or an animal person at all, for that matter.

She couldn't tell just yet, but she knew she liked this cat and the way he seemed to enjoy every single touch of hers.

"I bet you'd like me even more if I had a treat for you," she said, grinning.

Before she had even finished her sentence, the cat sat up and began meowing at her hopefully. Nonstop.

_Oh Hyne, what did I do? s_he thought, cringing. She knew from hands-on experience that Rinoa's dog was smart enough to understand a few basic words, food-related things included, and the second anyone uttered something familiar in her presence near feeding or walk time, Angelo went nuts.

The cat continued to meow, apparently not intent on forgetting what Quistis had uttered any time soon.

"Oy!"

Quistis turned around to find Seifer's head peeking out of the doorway. He looked weary. "What did you say to him?"

"I said 'treat,' " Quistis admitted guiltily.

Figaro meowed even louder.

Seifer groaned. "Great... Hang on, I'm almost done."

Quistis tried to placate the cat with more strokes, but he didn't stop. She was only too thankful when Seifer returned, suitcase in one hand, gunblade case in the other. He had changed into a pair of jeans and a blue sweater and a lit cigarette was dangling from his lips.

He set his luggage down by the couch and placed the cigarette in the ashtray upon the coffee table.

"C' mere, demon spawn," he said to Figaro, and headed towards the kitchen.

The cat sprang from her lap and broke into a near-sprint after him. He jumped up on the counter and waited eagerly, furry tail swishing as Seifer rummaged through one of the cupboards. Quistis watched him pull out a box of treats and saw Figaro's tail soar up eagerly. Seifer gave the cat a sharp, but not unkind nod and he immediately jumped off the counter. He knelt down on the cat's level to feed him two treats and stood up to put the box in the cupboard again, after giving the cat a gentle pet.

He stepped over to the living room, leaning down to pick his cigarette up. "OK, let's go," he said, making a move to pick up his luggage.

"I can wait," Quistis said, pointing towards the half-finished cigarette.

"I can finish it-"

"Not in my car you can't," she cut him off.

Seifer rolled his eyes and came over to the couch to take a seat. He tapped the cigarette against the ashtray once and then his eyes shifted over to Quistis's jeans.

"You let him sit on your lap?" he said, and there was a faint grin on his lips.

Quistis assumed he meant the cat. "Yes, why?" she asked.

As if on cue, Figaro made his way back to the living room and trotted over to Seifer, seeking a pet from his current master. Seifer pointed at her jeans. "That's why."

They were covered in long, white hair. Quistis let out a groan. "Could've warned me..."

Seifer shrugged and put out his cigarette. "Could've called when you came in. Then I would've warned you."

She considered wiping the hairs off her jeans right then and there and make a mess out of his carpet, but then she remembered that it wasn't really his, and she had no reason to annoy the actual owner.

_I'll just do it outside,_ she thought.

Seifer got up and went to pick up his luggage once more. He turned the TV and stereo off, then made his way over to Quistis. "Mind carrying that to the car?" he asked, extending the gunblade case towards her.

Quistis shook her head and took the case off his hands. With his free hand, Seifer reached down and scooped Figaro up in one arm.

"Er..." Quistis began, staring from the cat to him and back again. "Where are you taking the cat?"

"Where do you think?" Seifer said, as if he was offended she had even asked. "I'm taking Figaro with me."

"To Balamb Garden? But-"

"Oh, _Rinoa_ can have her bitch, but I can't bring my cat?" Seifer asked, in a tone that openly dared her to try and persuade him otherwise.

"It's not even yours to bring!"

"Well, what do you suggest I do, leave him here?"

"I- no. But-"

"Jonah can't keep him; something about the stupid GSPA not allowing pets until we're fully operational. The previous owner obviously can't keep him or he wouldn't have left him with Jonah. So he's with me."

Quistis placed one hand on her hip. "I'm not saying this to be difficult, but Squall is going to have a fit over this."

"_Squall_ will have to live with it," Seifer said. "If he wants me there, he's getting the whole package."

Quistis sighed in resignation and made her way over to the elevator, not in the mood to get into a discussion over this. After all, her orders extended to escorting Seifer to Garden and no further. _Let someone else get a headache over this,_ she thought.

She didn't want the poor cat to be left all alone, or get tossed over to another owner yet again, but there was going to be hell to pay. Not to mention they would have to watch over a cat during a six-hour journey overseas.

Seifer followed suit, a smug look on his face over his victory.

One elevator ride later, they reached the ground floor. The concierge was apparently deeply engrossed in a magazine, and jumped in his seat when he heard the elevator's ding.

"Leaving already, Mr. Almasy?" he asked as Seifer walked up to the desk.

"Keep a sharp eye out, Jeff," Seifer said, leaving the little brass penthouse key on the desk. "Have you called the post office to redirect my mail?"

"All done, Mr. Almasy."

"Good. Have someone fix the fridge while I'm gone, will you?" he asked. "Mr. Meric will probably visit in a few days."

"Will do. Have a safe trip. Pleasure to have met you, Miss Trepe," Jeff said genially.

Quistis smiled at the man and gave him a curt wave, then followed Seifer outside to the car.

* * *

_**Three days ago**_

The young man swept his fingers over his shoulder, wiping away a barely visible fleck of dust from his uniform. He was hurrying up the stairs that led to the office of Galbadia Garden's Headmaster, Jonah Meric.

Many cadets and fellow SeeDs saluted him on his way there, and he acknowledged them all with a curt nod. The gray SeeD uniform was meant to help the residents of the Garden blend in and become one with the crowd, but it was hard not to notice a man like him.

Even for a soldier, Manu Fortenbras stood out for his flawlessly meticulous appearance. With the exception of his teammates and his leader, no-one in G-Garden had even witnessed the slightest crease, the most minimal stain on his uniform. His long, straight, dark brown hair was worn in a low ponytail, without a single hair jutting out of place. His posture was perfectly straight, and his stride elegant and purposeful. He was a man of noble mien, and it showed in his every move.

And if those signs were not proof enough of his discipline and professionalism, the gleaming symbol on his chest alone made him a force to be reckoned with. Right above the breast pocket of his uniform, there hung a polished silver ornament, depicting a rod with a snake coiled around it. It was a token that was given to select few SeeDs, and in the whole of G-Garden, Manu was the only man who wore it. It denoted his outstanding abilities as a White Caster of the highest rank.

The man didn't make a single stop on his way to the office, but for a second to glance at his reflection on the glossy surface of the elevator. He ran a nimble finger over his left eyebrow and set about his way again.

Once outside Jonah Meric's office, he came to a halt. The two guards didn't even bother with identification or questioning, but simply saluted him and stood aside to let him pass. Manu straightened up and cleared his throat before knocking.

"Enter."

He stepped inside the Headmaster's office and closed the door behind him, immediately standing at attention.

"At ease, Fortenbras," said Jonah Meric.

Manu took in his surroundings and saw that the Headmaster had company. With the exception of Seifer, his whole team was assembled there.

"You wanted to see me, sir?" he asked.

"I did, yes. Take a seat," Meric said, indicating a spare seat next to a short man with light brown hair. He didn't waste time with introductions and went straight to the point.

"Seifer will return tomorrow. He hasn't contacted you yet to inform you, but your presence will most likely be requested in Balamb Garden for the following months," he said, once Manu had taken his seat. "They've asked him to remain there for the duration of the supervision, and he'll no doubt ask for his team.

You are to act as this Garden's representatives during your stay there," Meric went on. "Seifer is in charge of the negotiations and reports, and I expect you all to assist him to the best of your abilities.

You are not to interfere with the meetings, but should your aid be required in any way, you are to follow Squall Leonhart's orders. Seifer remains your leader for scheduled missions, but he answers to Squall Leonhart, and from now on so will you.

With that in mind, your itinerary for the next three days will be as follows: You are to travel to Balamb for our ongoing investigation. Intelligence has picked up some activity in the area and I want you to look into it; details are in the folders you'll receive from my secretary on your way out.

You will have less than two days to make as thorough an examination as possible, so be quick and precise. On the 27th, you will be joined by Seifer. Remain in Balamb until that very night and from there you will proceed to Esthar where Balamb Garden will be stationed.

From then on, I have little authority over you, but I want to make it clear that you are under no circumstances authorized to drop your investigation. Balamb Garden's directive takes priority, but if any new leads come forth, you're expected to follow them if they do not conflict with Balamb's orders.

Any questions?"

There was a round of 'No, sir's from all five.

In reality, Manu had about a million questions concerning this new set of orders, but he knew from experience that Jonah was not going to answer a single one. He was willing to wager his teammates were thinking along the same lines.

Such a life was a soldier's curse, where one followed orders without questioning them, but Manu had always been an exception to that rule. It was, perhaps, his only vice as a mercenary. And yet, during this past year and a half, he had learned to accept every single command from his superior without remonstration. All he needed to do to remind himself why he trusted this man was look back to their very first conversation.

"Good. Your train leaves tonight, so prepare accordingly. You're dismissed. All except Fortenbras," said Jonah.

Manu wasn't surprised by the behest; he was the team's second in command, and it was often that he acted as the leader in Seifer's absence. He told his fellow SeeDs to wait for him outside as he hung back to speak to Jonah in person.

Jonah waited until the door was shut again to resume talking. "As per usual, you're acting leader of the team until the 27th," he told Manu. "I want you to bear in mind that there is a possibility some of you will need to report to Esthar sooner," he went on.

"I got a call from Leonhart this morning concerning the mission they've undertaken in Esthar. He will most likely require Jack and Rhys's expertise to organize the operation. He will contact you if needed. In that case, you will remain in Balamb with Felix and send Nyx along with the other two."

Manu knew why Nyx was needed without Jonah having to explain. Though they were skilled in their respective fields and were certainly useful to their team, Jack and Rhys were not as capable in combat as their teammates were.

"Understood, sir," Manu said.

"That is all. You're free to go."

Manu left his chair and gave the Headmaster a salute, then made his way over to the door. He was about to exit, when Jonah remembered something and called him.

"Oh and, Manu?"

The young man turned around.

"As of today, you have permission to request _any_ level of Magic Capsules you wish. The storage room is at your disposal. Make sure they update your ID before you leave."

Manu blinked. "But sir, I already-"

"_Official_ permission," Jonah said, eying him knowingly over the rim of his glasses.

"Yes, sir. Understood, sir."

* * *

Figaro purred gently, perched on Seifer's lap. The cat was nearly asleep.

Seifer watched the view outside the window a little wistfully. He had grown attached to Galbadia and Deling City in particular over the years, and wasn't exactly thrilled to be leaving everything behind for Hyne knew how long.

He couldn't pretend he wasn't going to be missing his lavish apartment, either.

It wasn't often that he got a chance to leave G-Garden for anything other than a mission, and he had grown to seek the comfort of 24 Chevalier Street whenever possible. He had lived in minuscule quarters for far too long, and wasn't looking forward to spending a few already unbearable months in B-Garden's confined SeeD dorms.

His eyes shifted over to Quistis.

It was very odd, seeing her like this. He had never seen her in civilian clothes before except for their time at the orphanage, and she looked like a completely different person. He had never had to spend more than forty-five minutes in her presence, either, except for that fateful train ride so long ago. The train bound for Timber.

At the time, they'd had more than enough to discuss, as Quistis had tried in vain to persuade Seifer not to go chasing after the group of SeeDs already dispatched for the mission.

However, when things had settled down, they'd been able to talk for the remainder of the ride. He hadn't exactly been approachable, but he found out, much to his surprise, that she wasn't as boring company as he would've thought. She could actually be a little funny, even, when she bothered to dislodge the stick from her arse.

The civility hadn't lasted long back then, for reasons that he'd rather not recall.

"What?" Quistis asked suddenly, sighing.

"Hmmm?" Seifer said, blinking once and meeting her eye.

"You've been doing that ever since I stepped foot in your apartment," she said. "You keep staring at me like you're trying to figure something out."

"Oh, that," Seifer said. "It's your hair."

Quistis arched an eyebrow. "What, is there something on it?" she asked, letting go of the wheel with one hand to pat the top of her head.

"No, I've just never seen it worn down," Seifer explained. "I didn't even recognize you at first."

"That's the whole point," Quistis said, placing her hand back on the wheel. "I prefer to look a little different when I'm not bound to get into battle."

"Fame getting a little too much to handle?" Seifer asked, and though she wasn't looking at him, he knew she had picked up the mocking tone from his voice alone.

"Well, like it or not, we _are_ famous," she said matter-of-factly. "Don't tell me you've never had random people recognize you on the street..."

"I have," Seifer admitted.

"And wouldn't you like to avoid that every now and then if you could?"

He shrugged. "Most people don't really talk to me, they just whisper as I walk by," he said truthfully. "But yeah, I can see how you'd like to reduce the number of Trepies in the world," he added with a snicker.

"I noticed the concierge was quite friendly," Quistis said, bypassing the Trepie comment.

"Well... People in Deling are different."

"How so?"

"They don't get on my case as much as other people do. They just mind their own business," he said, unsure of how to explain it better.

Deling City was big enough to drive people into isolation and away from the overall community. The only gossip they were interested in was that of their friends and family and that of celebrities. _Besides, they were the very first group of people to eat up Edea's bullshit, so they can't really pass judgment, _Seifer thought.

Quistis gave him a cool gaze, somewhat calculating. It was her 'Instructor Expression,' as Seifer called it. The one she wore whenever she tried to read a person's face and see what hid beneath their words.

She turned around to face the street again, not saying a word.

"What time does our train leave?" Seifer asked, checking his watch.

"We're not taking a train," Quistis said. "Timber workers are on a strike and there's no train to Balamb that doesn't pass through Timber. We're taking the uhh... DelSub-"

"DeliSub," Seifer corrected her. He had spent enough time in the city to know the name of the fast subway that went all the way to Dollet.

"Right," Quistis went on. "And from Dollet, we take a ferry to FH. Shouldn't take as long as it took me to come," she commented with a slight cringe. "It's one of those new ferries that can make the Dollet-FH trip in seven hours or so."

"Does it make any stops?" Seifer asked.

"One; Balamb."

"Good, we're picking my team up from there," Seifer said. "So what time does our ferry leave?"

"Three p.m.," Quistis said. "Why?"

"Well, it's still early. I want to make a stop over at the train station," Seifer replied.

"The train station?"

"Figaro hates ships, they freak him out," Seifer explained.

"But trains don't?" Quistis asked wryly.

The blond shrugged. "Don't look at me, that's the way the cat feels. They've got people to take care of animals on board, so he should be fine."

"Doesn't the Esthar line go through Timber?" Quistis asked.

"The Express one doesn't," Seifer said. "He'll arrive a day later, but that's OK."

"Alright then," Quistis said, and set a new course on the GPS panel for the train station.

* * *

Rinoa's eyes kept going from the clock on the wall to her work and back again every two minutes.

As interesting as her job in the infirmary was, it had its slow days and this was definitely one of them. Besides, Edea's tutoring was something she always looked forward to, and she was supposed to meet up with Rinoa any minute now.

The minute hand moved past twelve, then onto one, onto two, under Rinoa's eager gaze. It was 10:07 when Edea showed up, and the young Sorceress nearly let out a cheer of joy for the rescue.

"Good morning, Gutrix, Rinoa," Edea said pleasantly, stepping into the infirmary.

"Edea!" Dr. Kadowaki exclaimed and ambled over to Edea with her arms spread out wide.

The two women hugged and kissed one another's cheeks, as Rinoa let out a small giggle when she saw Edea's small frame disappear completely within Gutrix Kadowaki's bountiful embrace.

For a second, she thought the doctor had snapped Edea's willowy body in two, for the latter turned a delicate shade of puce in the face, before pulling back and out of the hug. She readjusted the dark purple shawl over her shoulders and fell into an animated discussion with Kadowaki about their latest news.

Rinoa hung back still, her gaze lingering on Edea. She felt a sudden numbness at the balls of her feet and a searing sensation in her stomach at the sight of her. Though she tried to conceal it with long dresses and scarves, Edea was painfully thin.

I'm_ thin, _Rinoa thought. _Hell, I'm skinny. Edea looks... unhealthy._

Rinoa suddenly wished Edea would've let her hair down. She wore it in a bun today, revealing an expanse of milky white skin stretched to its limits on her bony neck. It made her feel uncomfortable; though she tried not to stare, she found her eyes sweeping over the emaciated arms, the hollow cheeks and spindly fingers over and over again.

"Rinoa, are you ready for our lesson?"

The girl snapped out of it, hurrying to force a smile on her lips. "Oh yes, yes of course."

"Don't push her too much today, Edea," Dr. Kadowaki said, looking at Rinoa. "She was feeling a little under the weather yesterday."

"Is that so?" Edea asked, frowning gently. "Are you sure you're in good enough shape to proceed with our lesson?"

"Yes, it was nothing," Rinoa said, chuckling and bobbing on her heels to appear bouncy and cheerful in a –failed- imitation of Selphie. "I drank too much at Irvine's party, and I was feeling nauseous all morning. But I'm fine today."

Though she was honest in saying that she no longer felt bad enough to take frequent trips to the bathroom, the slightly sickly feeling in her stomach had yet to go away.

Edea didn't look convinced, and Rinoa immediately realized why.

Last night during their dinner, she hadn't touched her food and Edea had noticed. She hadn't been able to place the look in the woman's eyes, but she had caught her staring a fair few times to understand something was going on.

Edea didn't mention anything concerning last night's events and merely smiled. "Good to hear that. No need to head to the training center today, all we need is some privacy," she said, as she saw Rinoa making her way over to the exit. Edea turned to the doctor. "Dr. Kadowaki, we will be needing one of the infirmary rooms for today, if that's all right."

The woman shrugged. "Fine with me. It doesn't look like it's going to get busy today."

"Thank you," Edea said, and motioned Rinoa to come along.

Relieved to get to her lesson without any cross-examination over her slight illness, Rinoa cheerfully followed Edea into the room.

"Are we meditating again today?" she asked one inside. "I've been training like you asked last time and I think-"

Edea shut the door behind her and fixed Rinoa with a solemn gaze.

"We need to talk," she said.

* * *

The DeliSub had been constructed by initiative of Deling City's new mayor following the Second Sorceress War.

Its purpose was twofold; it was as much an act to gain more independence, as it was an olive branch extended to the Dukedom of Dollet.

At the end of the war, enmity between Deling City and Timber had not been fully resolved; if anything, with Galbadia's government in total disarray, the time for drastic changes on the face of the continent was nigh. Since Timber was Galbadia's, and the world's, largest railroad hub, all trains bound for the capital had to go through Timber. In order to connect with the rest of the world and rid themselves of eternal dependency on the Timber lines, Deling City had decided to kill two birds with one stone:

Make Dollet a peace offering and use their port as an accessible means of transport.

Quistis knew enough both through history courses and personal experience to fully appreciate the hidden subtext of this controversial move.

Inspired by the Esthari goverment's attempts to conquer more land back in the First Sorceress War, one Vinzer Deling became motivated to expand the Galbadian borders. What was once a continet of small, independent nations, became a large empire that eventually assimilated them all. Their traditions became as extinct as their languages, since Deling, a man of Balmish heritage, enforced Balamese as the official language of his newly-formed empire.

The only exception to the rule had been Dollet, which, at the time, was a force to be reckoned with. Nowhere else did Vinzer Deling encounter more resistance than he did in the borders of the Holy Dollet Empire, but eventually, the once glorious and powerful nation fell. To this very day, the persistance of Dollet natives to their own ways and customs could be observed by the fact alone that Dollet was a bilingual country, only barely tolerating the Balamese dictated upon the rest of the nations.

Dolletians had been forced to retreat and were given nothing but their once glorious city to command. The city eventually became a near-independent country called the Dukedom of Dollet, to preserve a modicum of the superiority they had so abruptly lost. Peace was not disturbed for several years, but there was still bad blood between the two cities.

By appearing to be reliant on Dollet, Deling's new mayor was giving them part of their wounded pride back. The Duke had agreed to the proposition without giving it a single second's thought.

The Galbadian government had changed indeed, but deceit and manipulation was something their politicians had known from the cradle. _A Torama can't change its spots,_ Quistis thought.

Still, she could appreciate DeliSub's benefits, despite the underhanded manner in which the project had been pushed forward. _And it doesn't hurt that it's pretty damn impressive_, she thought.

The construct was able to transport passengers the same way a regular subway would, though it was mostly designed for vehicle owners who were taking a ferry and wanted to have their own means of transportation along. Most of the subway was nothing but ramps that secured the cars, with a few wagons leading the train for those on foot.

Seifer knew of it, but it was the first time he had ever actually used it from what he'd told Quistis, so he was nearly as impressed as she was upon seeing it.

The oddest part of their journey so far was that she'd expected it to be boring and awkward. However, Seifer wasn't hostile in the least bit, and wasn't really bad company once they got a conversation going. She didn't know exactly how much he'd changed, but he wasn't jumping at every chance to belittle her or even start an argument.

_Yet._

It was now half past two and they were having a drink over at one of Dollet's many seaside cafés, all of which were packed with people waiting to board the next ship or ferry. There was a lot of chatter inside, but the music was thankfully turned down.

Seifer had spent the last few minutes staring outside the window. It overlooked the road that led from Lapin Beach to the main city square.

"Gil for your thoughts?" Quistis said, slightly drowsy from the warmth inside the café and the drink in her hand. She twisted the short glass around, letting the ice-cubes swirl within the nearly tangerine Sylkis liquid.

Seifer turned to look at her. "Just reminiscing..."

"About what?"

"The field exam," he said. "Where do you hold it these days?"

Quistis shrugged. "Depends on where there is conflict. Things have been quiet lately, so we've decided to pick remote areas and create battle simulations among cadets and SeeDs. There isn't any real danger, but it's the best we can do given the circumstances."

"Not a bad idea," Seifer said.

"Thanks," Quistis said, smiling. "It was mine."

She continued to smile, but her eyes lingered on him, looking at him very much the same way he had in the car.

"What?" he asked.

"Can I ask something?" she said. "Without you taking offense."

Seifer arched an eyebrow at that. "Depends on the question. Shoot."

"Why are you being polite today?" she asked.

The question clearly caught him off-guard. "Does it bother you?"

"No, it just confuses me," Quistis replied. "When I saw you at the Centra meeting you were considerably more hostile."

"Well, I was the scapegoat at the Centra meeting," Seifer countered. "I'd just flown over after a mission, I was tired, and people were after my arse. You weren't exactly Miss Congeniality, either. Both you and Messenger Girl were staring at me like I was the Anti-Hyne."

Quistis lifted the glass of Sylkis to her lips and gave him a look. "You're exaggerating."

"No, I'm not," Seifer said earnestly. "You and the cowboy are the only ones who have been civil so far, so I'm returning the favor."

_Trust Seifer to make a chore out of being kind to others,_ Quistis thought wryly. "Does it take that much of an effort to be polite?" she asked.

"Not as much as it used to," Seifer replied, grinning.

Quistis laughed, something she had never expected to do in the presence of the ex-Knight. It felt odd, yet at the same time natural. As if he had always been funny, but she couldn't find it in herself to laugh until now.

Perhaps they had simply needed to grow a little and move on before they could be comfortable in each other's presence. They'd both come a long way from the two children who'd stumbled into the orphanage, scared and clueless, and perhaps it was the very fact that Quistis had been delving into the past lately that she found she could sympathize with him.

Edea was right. They would never truly be free of old grudges unless they resoled things between them. She needed it, her friends needed it, and Seifer probably did, too.

"You've changed," she said.

"So have you," said Seifer. "I hear you're not an instructor anymore."

Quistis grit her teeth involuntarily. "No, I'm not."

"Good," he said. "No offense, but you sucked at it."

"And here I thought you were going to be polite for the rest of the trip."

Seifer sighed. "What's with you people? I can't be honest without you having a hissy fit?" he said, exasperated. "Why does it have to be a bad thing that you're not fit to be an instructor? Those who can't do, teach. You can, so why teach?"

Quistis blinked. "Was that a compliment?"

"It's the truth," Seifer said, not giving her the satisfaction of discussing this any further; he changed the subject immediately. "My turn now?"

"Your turn for what?"

"A question."

"I didn't realize this was a game," Quistis said, but decided to humor him. "Hit me."

"What _did_ you do to get stuck running errands for Leonhart?"

Quistis felt her defenses flare up for a split second, but instead of turning this into an argument, she grinned and leaned a little closer to the table. "Like I said, I _didn't_ do anything," she replied. "Everyone else was smashed after Irvine's party, so he demoted them and gave me this mission so they wouldn't regain their rank as fast as they'd hoped."

"You people must be bored out of your minds," Seifer said, chuckling.

_You people, you people... Why do you need to separate yourself from us so badly, Seifer?_ Quistis wondered.

"Is this the most interesting mission you've had lately?" he added.

"As opposed to your _thrilling_ life over at the penthouse with your kitty?" Quistis countered.

_...Touché. _Seifer narrowed his eyes at her, but it wasn't in a hostile manner. Since when did Trepe allow herself to smile so mischievously? It looked out of place, but wasn't exactly unpleasant.

He realized then that there was a side to her he had never known, but he didn't know if he was comfortable discovering it. The fact alone that they had survived hours of each other's company without any hostility was a little unsettling; it threw him off.

"It's not _my_ kitty," he grumbled. "And I've been on thirteen _real_ missions within the last two months," he said smugly. "When was the last time you did anything on the field?"

"What on _earth _were you hired to do?" Quistis asked, apparently genuinely surprised.

"Just because things don't happen out in the open, doesn't mean they don't happen at all, Trepe," Seifer said.

She gave him another one of her long, calculating looks, but said no more on the matter. "My turn," she said instead. "What's Jonah Meric's deal?"

_There we go,_ Seifer thought. He should've known Quistis wasn't going to stick to small talk for long.

"Meaning?" he asked, touching one of the ice-cubes in his drink gingerly. It plunged into the dark green depths of his Reagan and back up again, leaving a droplet of liquid on Seifer's index finger. He sucked on it, waiting for the inevitable interrogation.

"What is he like?" Quistis clarified. "What's his story? You seem to be rather fond of him."

"_Fond_," Seifer said, scoffing. "I respect him. He knows what he's doing and he's fair. That's all I need from my superior."

_Seems to me like you're getting a lot more, though,_ Quistis thought. "Fair enough. So?" she asked.

Seifer shrugged. "There's not much I can say that you can't find out on your own. He served in the Galbadian Army for a few years, reached the rank of Major General, so he knows a lot about discipline and how to command a military force."

"Makes sense that G-Garden would want someone like him after Martine," Quistis said.

"Exactly," Seifer agreed. "Other than that, he's a pretty sensible guy. Doesn't make huge demands, doesn't run the place with an iron clad, but he makes sure people know their limits and freedoms under his command."

"I'd like to meet him."

"I expect you will, at some point," Seifer said. "During negotiations."

"So why did he pick you to play ambassador in this whole deal?"

Seifer set his glass down. "That's two questions."

"You can ask me two questions on your turn," Quistis said, grinning.

"Isn't it obvious?" Seifer asked. "I'm not exactly loved in Balamb Garden, but I lived there for nearly twelve years. I know the way things work there, and I know the people. Your pals may hate me, but they'll be more inclined to talk to me rather than a complete stranger."

"No-one _hates_ you, Seifer," Quistis aid, rolling her eyes. His statement reminded her of teenage Seifer, the boy mad at everything and everyone, including himself.

"Oh, yes they do," he insisted.

"There's bad blood, but it can be rectified," Quistis said, seeing an opening to start working on what Edea had asked of her. It wasn't exactly subtle, but then again, neither was Seifer, so perhaps this approach would work better on him.

"We'll be working closely for a while," Quistis went on. "So being able to get along will make things far easier. For example... why didn't you come at Irvine's party? He told me he invited you."

"Please," Seifer said, his face darkening a bit. "You and me right here?" he said, pointing at each of them in turn. "We're having a chit-chat, but we're not mates. We're just being polite because we have nearly seven hours of a journey ahead of us and we need to talk to someone to pass the time."

"We _could_ become friendly," Quistis said.

"No, we couldn't," he said, shaking his head. "Wanna know why? Here's my first question: Do you like me?"

Quistis's shoulders tensed up. "I..."

"You don't, and neither do I," Seifer said. "You're not bad to talk to when there's nothing to do, but it can't go beyond that, and I'll tell you why. Second question: Do you _want_ to get to know me?"

"Yes," Quistis answered firmly.

Seifer scoffed. "No, you don't."

"Yes, I do," Quistis reiterated. "It's just easier for you to assume that I don't, because then there's no reason to try. Whenever we happen to be in the same room, you'll have someone to make small talk with, and that suits you fine. But actually trying to make a friend? That would take too much time and effort, so why bother, right?"

Seifer was visibly taken aback by her response. He had never expected Trepe to be so bold about her intentions; usually, she was a pushover when it came to human relationships and let people walk all over her.

He didn't know whether to take her argument as the truth or not, but he was slightly impressed nonetheless.

"You _seriously_ want to get to know me?" he asked.

"I can't guarantee I'll like what I find out, but I want to try," Quistis said.

"Why?"

"Because I realized today that when you're not being an ass, you make good company," Quistis replied earnestly, mirroring his own current opinion of her. "So I'm wondering if there's more to you than meets the eye."

Seifer arched an eyebrow, sizing her up. He still had a hard time believing she was telling anything but lies, but Trepe had never been a good liar; it stressed her out too much to sound even remotely convincing.

Then again, stranger things were known to happen.

"Did Squall put you up to this?" he asked, something occurring to him just then.

"To what?"

"It makes sense," Seifer said, shrugging. "You're hot, we're alone for the rest of the trip... He probably thought I'd be more willing to let you know what my intentions were once I shagged you."

_Oh, you complete ass... You did not just do this; you didn't just imply I sold myself out for a few gil. _Quistis's jaw tightened. "Are you asking if Squall decided to whore me out to find out if you're an enemy?"

Seifer shrugged. "If you wanna put it _that_ way..."

With a screech that brought every patron's attention to them, Quistis pushed her chair back and gathered her things hurriedly. Her expression was livid. She put her jacket on and reached into a pocket to get her wallet. She tossed some bills on the table and then turned to him, as she slipped her duffel bag on her shoulder.

"I was wrong," she said. "It is physically impossible for you _not _to be a dick."

_Damn, now she's really offended. Nice going, you wanker,_ Seifer thought, sighing. Jonah was going to have his head for messing things up so fast.

Already regretting the momentary satisfaction that was pissing her off, he watched her storm outside the café, feeling the slightest bit guilty. He hadn't really meant to insult her, but anyone would have been suspicious were they in his shoes.

He gathered his luggage and slipped his leather jacket on, about to follow her outside, when he noticed the amount of money on the table.

_Bloody Trepe,_ he thought, groaning. She had paid for his drink as well.

He dug his hand into his pocket, fished out a one hundred fifty bill and slipped it under his glass. He picked up Quistis's money and walked to the exit.

He found her right outside, hands crossed in front of her chest. For a second there, he thought she was _literally_ fuming, but the little cloud that hung in the air in front of her was actually an effect of her warm breath in cold temperature.

He made a move to slip the money into her jacket pocket, when she jerked back, turning to glare at him.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"I was just returning your money, sheesh," he grumbled.

Her brow furrowed, staring at the two bills in his hand.

"My treat," he said, reaching out to hand her the gil.

"I don't want you to treat me."

"Well, I just did. It won't kill you to accept it."

Shaking her head, Quistis yanked the bills out of his grasp and shoved them in her pocket. "C'mon, the ferry just arrived," she said sharply. "I'll try not to jump you on the way there."

"Look, I'm s—" Seifer began, but she cut him off.

"Save it. I don't want to hear it," Quistis said, marching over to the pier.

"I didn't mean to offend you."

"Oh yes, you did."

"Well it's not every day I get an offer of truce from someone I tried to kill," Seifer said, trying to reason with her. "Who tried to kill me in return, if I may add."

"Well excuse _me_ for defending myself," Quistis quipped.

"Oh fuck it," Seifer said, exasperated. "I won't even bother. Go ahead and skulk in the corner like a two-year-old. It'll certainly make the trip more bearable."

"You don't get to vent your spleen and expect me to shut up and take it, Seifer," Quistis thundered. "I'm not your 'mediocre instructor' anymore, remember?"

"Sorry, it's hard to tell. See, she didn't have any fucking composure, either."

"Er... tickets?"

Quistis gave Seifer one last venomous glare before handing her ticket to the bewildered man staring at them both. She pocketed the stub and walked up the stairs to the ferry, not waiting for him.

Seifer showed his ticket without looking at the man, already hoping Quistis wouldn't beat him to the cabin. Maybe if he got in first, she'd be too angry to stay near him and he could get some peace for the next seven hours.

"Welcome aboard the _Dollet Star_! I hope you have a pleasant journey, sir."

"Yeah, right," he muttered, dragging his feet up the stairs.

* * *

Edea's expression seemed to convey a million things at once. Though Rinoa didn't know the former Sorceress for as long a time as the rest of her friends did, she had come to know her better through their lessons. She had spent enough time with her to be able to understand what her eyes said, and right now, she could see the older woman giving her a look of immense sadness. There was fear, sympathy and pity there, as well, none of which made her feel any less comfortable at the sudden change in tone.

Rinoa took a seat on the cot and met Edea's gaze head on. "Tell me," she said.

Edea hesitated for a moment before nodding, and took a seat on the chair facing the bed.

"How much do you know about the heritage of a Sorceress, Rinoa?" she asked.

Rinoa frowned in confusion. "Are you talking about transferring powers?"

"Not exactly," Edea replied. "I'm talking about motherhood."

The young Sorceress blanched. "How-? How did you know…?"

"Know what, exactly?"

"That… I thought I was— I mean… That I might be…"

"Pregnant?" Edea said. "So you've already suspected?"

"Yes," Rinoa said. "But I took a test and it said—"

"That you're not," Edea cut her off.

"Right…" Rinoa said. She had the sudden feeling that Edea had made those predictions based on personal experience. The thought made Rinoa's hands sweat in fear, though fear of what, she could not say.

"The nausea and general feeling of sickness is because of the magic," Edea explained. "All Sorceresses experience it as they delve deeper into more powerful spells. You see, Rinoa, for Sorceresses, magic comes from within. You do not need to junction magic to cast anymore; it'll come naturally. You have the forces of nature, time, space, light and darkness at your disposal, but it all comes with rules and a very heavy price."

"But I've been a Sorceress for two years," Rinoa said, puzzled. "My powers have nearly tripled so far. Why have I only just started to feel like this?"

"Because we've only barely scratched the surface of magic up until today," Edea said, smiling enigmatically. "Merely a preparation for what's to come. You're only now starting to grasp the full extent of your powers, and it's changing you. Your body and your personality. Once you reach your full potential, you will be the same, yet so different, you won't remember what it was like _not_ being a Sorceress."

"Different… how?" Rinoa asked, shuddering as she thought of Adel and Ultimecia.

"Your appearance might change slightly, but the biggest change will come from within," Edea explained. "It's… the way you perceive things. Yourself, others, your environment."

"I… I told Selphie I was more… aware of my body than I ever have been," Rinoa confessed.

"Then you understand what I'm talking about," Edea said, smiling. "It's not a bad thing Rinoa. You knew something was wrong before you felt nauseous for the first time. It won't be permanent, don't worry. It's just your body adjusting slowly to the new state of things. Your magic is a little volatile right now, that's all. And it's why we've done so much work on self-control and meditation. It won't get out of control unless you let it."

Rinoa nodded in understanding, only now realizing that they'd directed the conversation away from its original course. "You mentioned a price," Rinoa said. "When you told me about my powers."

Edea took in a deep breath, for a moment avoiding Rinoa's gaze. She stared down at her hands in what Rinoa understood to be loss at how to phrase what she wanted to say.

"The price is… motherhood," Edea replied. "Like I said before. Your body is changing to accommodate your magic, but it won't be able to accommodate anything else. You're not pregnant. You're going through… Gods, how do I-? For lack of a better word, menopause."

Rinoa felt her jaw slacken. She had heard every single word Edea had said, but she suddenly felt as if her body was afloat, not really in that room, just the essence of it hovering near-by and listening in on a bizarre conversation between two strange women.

She felt inexplicably exposed and ashamed of what had just been discussed. "But…" she whispered, once she found her voice again. "I'm only twenty…"

Edea reached out, taking Rinoa's hand into her own. It was warm and comforting, but Rinoa felt nothing.

"Please understand," Edea said. "That this changes _nothing_ about who you are. I… I went through the same," Edea said. Her voice had become thicker, and Rinoa knew that if she looked up, she would see the older woman in tears. "The ability to bear children does not define your womanhood; it's only a part of it. I know it's hard to see right now, but—"

Words sailed past her ears, never reaching her.

Dreams of a life with Squall had been just that; dreams. Nothing set, nothing predetermined, just a vague blur in the distant future where the notion of children existed only as something to go wistfully 'Maybe' at. Hadn't she told Selphie that this was the last thing on her mind right now?

And yet... it hurt.

Her life, her friends jokingly said, had been a fairytale so far. A feisty, rebellious Princess escaping the tower of the villain to live free and one day meet her Prince. Tragedy in her past, just enough to make her real and approachable, and a series of obstacles that were designed to bring Him and Her closer.

Squall had swam through the endless ocean of stars and cold space to find her and rescue her from herself. He had cut through her prison with his sword. They had found their happy ending in a balcony overlooking the sea at night, her making a wish at a falling star only to have it come true as he pulled her close and gave her the sweetest kiss imaginable.

It had been _their_ fairytale, epic and thrilling, and they were now living in the ever after.

But Princesses weren't supposed to be barren. It was an ugly touch of reality that had no place in a story like theirs.

Like the serpentine voice that hissed seductively in her ear every time she felt the magic course through her veins.

The magic that was slowly decaying her insides.

"Can you leave me alone for a little while?" Rinoa whispered.

"Rinoa—"

"Please?" she insisted. "I just… I need to digest this. I'm sorry we have to miss our lesson; I know you're busy—"

"Don't worry about it," Edea hurried to say. "I just don't think it's a good idea for you to be alone right now."

"Perhaps, but… I just need some time alone."

Edea gave Rinoa's hand one last squeeze and let go, leaving her seat reluctantly. She lingered at the doorway for a second, perhaps hoping Rinoa would change her mind, but the girl curled into a ball on the cot and turned her back at her. Edea closed the door behind her, giving Rinoa some privacy.

The young Sorceress felt her eyes well up as soon as the door shut behind Edea.

_Don't, don't, don't… Don't do this… Don't cry over something you never had._

It was strange, she thought. Feeling this way over something she had been too young to ever even think of. There had been no talk of the future between her and Squall. Enjoying the moment was all she'd cared about.

The Prince and his Princess.

The Princess... turned Sorceress.

She had become the villain of the story long before they had reached the happy ending. The transformation was already under way.

It was the price she had to pay for powers she had never asked for in the first place. Powers that made her a pariah among Garden students, the only grudgingly accepted friend of famous SeeDs. The Sorceress.

_"You have the forces of nature, time, space, light and darkness at your disposal."_

_And they're eating me up, swallowing me whole…_

Her sob was almost silent, lost within the confines of the small room, where she cried until she could cry no more.

* * *

Quistis stepped out of the cabin, wrapped up tightly in her coat and scarf.

Darkness had descended upon the_ Dollet Star_, but the cold temperature hadn't stopped many people from staying up on the sun deck. In order to avoid the storm ahead, the captain had decided to circle around toward Trabia and approach Balamb from the north. They were nearing Trabia soon, so there were many parents out and about, showing the distant lights of the cities to their children and talking about what the continent was like.

However, most of them had come up on deck to witness a truly rare phenomenon on the night sky: The magnificent Trabian Aurora, beautiful even in its normal state, now enhanced by one of the greatest solar storms in the history of Gaia.

Quistis had read in the paper nearly a week ago that such storms were extremely rare, occurring once every a thousand years or so. The last documented storm of this magnitude had been on December, 3999 M.G. It is said that locals, not possessing the science or knowledge to comprehend it, thought it was an omen of Hyne's second coming and, combining it with the intense weather phenomena observed that year, assumed their world was coming to an end.

The aurora was only faintly visible from their current position, but Quistis had seen it without the added effect of the storm far too many times in the past not to realize it was now visible miles before it should have normally been.

She had half a mind to go call Seifer up so he wouldn't miss it, but then remembered they weren't talking.

She had barely seen him for the duration of the trip. After making it to the cabin first, she headed straight for the bed, still fuming from their argument. She didn't know how fast she went to sleep, and when she woke up, she found his luggage on the bunk below, so she concluded that he must have come in at some point while she slept.

It was probably a good idea to go looking for him soon, though Quistis was adamant she wanted to witness Hyne's magnum opus with her own eyes before doing so.

Smiling at the horizon, she reached down into her sweater and pulled out a cross hanging from a slim, silver chain. She continued to stare straight ahead, stroking it gently as she watched the aurora become brighter and brighter the closer they got to the north pole.

"Coffee?"

Quistis let out a shriek, jerking away from the source of the sound.

Half the people on the deck turned to stare at her and a bewildered Seifer, who was now looking at Quistis as if she were crazy.

She shook her head and glared at him, waiting until everyone went back to their business to address him.

"Are you crazy? You scared the hell out of me!" she hissed.

Seifer didn't dignify that with a response and merely held out a carton cup under her nose. Through the hole of the plastic foil, a thin wisp of aroma reached Quistis's nostrils. It was only as she took in a breath that she realized she hadn't had a single drop of coffee all day long.

_No wonder I've been asleep for half the journey,_ she thought.

"Am I off the hook now?" Seifer asked, still holding the cup.

"You could've called me whatever you wanted and still gotten away with it by offering coffee," Quistis mumbled, and took the cup.

Seifer chuckled and brought the rim of the cup over to his lips, taking a sip in. "Seriously though."

"I really don't have the strength to be arguing with you all the way to Esthar," Quistis said with a sigh.

"You didn't answer my question." Seifer said.

"Doesn't make a difference. You apologized. I'll pretend it was sincere, and we can-"

"It _was_ sincere."

"Can we just stop talking about this?" Quistis said irritably, and took a sip of coffee.

The moment the liquid touched her tongue, she grimanced as if she'd just swallowed a whole lemon. She made a move over to the railing and was about to spit her mouthful out into the sea, when she caught Seifer's eye.

"'Ou 'ig 'ish 'un 'urhose, 'ing 'ou?" she asked, cheeks puffed in an attempt to hold it in.

She had meant to ask whether he'd done this on purpose, but the coffee mouthful made it hard for her to speak properly. Nevertheless, he apparently understood her and shook his head. Either that or he had no idea what she was talking about, but decided to take a shot and say no.

Quistis nodded and let it out, grimacing once more.

"Bad?" Seifer asked, now looking a little relieved that their argument had been forgotten in light of bad coffee. Quistis wasn't sure whether he was actually relieved she was no longer offended or simply glad they'd stopped fighting. Probably the latter.

"It's like they used a teaspoon of coffee for a vat of water," Quistis commented, looking at the cup ruefully.

"Tastes okay to me," Seifer said, shrugging.

"Oh well..." Quistis mumbled, and decided not to turn her nose up at the single source of caffeine at her disposal.

She took every sip with trepidation, like she she was afraid it was laced with poison, all the while feeling Seifer's amused gaze on her. She was glad when his attention was diverted elsewhere and she could finally drink her horrible coffee in peace.

"Wow," Seifer suddenly said, and for what was probably the first time in his life, he was at a loss for words.

Quistis looked up at him, her cup already half-empty. She found Seifer staring straight ahead into the distance, his expression reminding her of her own reflection against the glass the first time she had looked outside the Lunar Station and into the vastness of space.

His hair and cheeks were bathed in red light, and even his vivid green eyes seemed to lose some of their color when wreathed in a cloud of dark red.

She turned around and her breath hitched in her throat; before her, was the Trabian Aurora in all its glory.

The beauty of the whole wide world was displayed right in front of her, crystallized in long swirls of red. The scenery felt like it belonged to another world, another time, where there was nothing but an elegant equilibrium in the universe, where millions of colored particles danced among the stars in harmony.

"Some of the ancient tribes of Centra used to call it 'Dance of the Spirits'," Quistis said.

"Yeah..." Seifer said, still staring at the spectacle in awe. Quistis wasn't entirely certain he'd heard her.

It was impressive enough to see the aurora under regular circumstances, she thought, but to see it under the full effect of the sun was like watching the building blocks of the cosmos give her a tantalizing taste of creation itself.

They wove around one another, like living silk and wisps of smoke, shimmering so intensely that it felt like daytime, except for the red hue filtering through the air and coloring everything in its wake.

_Beautiful…_ Quistis thought, her fingers instinctively going to her cross once more.

She felt drawn to the gorgeous view like a moth to a flame. It was probably her imagination playing tricks on her, but she thought she felt the red eddies in the sky pulsate with energy. Literally felt them, vibrating under her very skin. They looked close enough to touch and she almost reached out, before feeling a sudden gust of wind blow her hand back in place.

Her eyes reluctantly left the sky and she turned to look at Seifer.

He had also removed his gaze from the aurora, and was instead staring at her. Or rather, her hand, and the cross firmly clasped within her fingers.

"It's fading fast," Quistis said, slipping the cross back in through the neckline of her sweater. "Must mean we're getting close to Balamb."

"Yeah," Seifer said laconically, his eyes not leaving the cross until it was out of sight.

He looked up, not to watch the aurora again, but rather in a way that told Quistis he was thinking about something.

"Did it just get a little windier, or is it just me?" he asked.

"No, I noticed, too. I guess we can't avoid the storm near Balamb entirely," Quistis said. "I just hope we will be able to dock and head on to FH."

"Right…" Seifer muttered, not really listening to her. He was scanning their surroundings a little warily, as if he was expecting something to happen any moment now.

"What is it?" Quistis asked.

"Nothing," Seifer said_,_ shaking his head.

The wind grew fiercer and Quistis clutched her scarf tightly around her neck to keep it from getting blown away. The bright red lights were nearly gone from the sky, and were instead replaced by the lights of Balamb City in the vicinity as the ferry veered into a new course. They would be there in less than half an hour.

She heard a sharp thud and turned alongside Seifer to the source of the sound; the door that led back to the decks below, where many people were already retreating to, was swinging and forth violently as the wind whipped it without mercy.

"We'd better..." Quistis trailed off.

Seifer nodded, probably thinking along the same lines. They began making their way over to the doorway.

"The weather was exactly like that when I left Balamb a few days ago," Seifer said, trying to make himself heard over the sound of the wind. "Weird, I didn't think it was going to last that long."

It seemed to get worse by the second. By the time they were half-way there, they had to lean forward at an angle to be able to move with more ease.

There was a sudden shriek from somewhere close to them, and the wind grew even stronger. Quistis and Seifer's heads whirled towards the back, and before they even had a chance to see what had happened, a gust with the power of a storm hit them. Seifer swerved on the spot, but Quistis, being lighter, was swept off her feet.

Seifer reached out to catch her before she fell, but the force of the wind pushed him along onto the wooden deck. Quistis struggled to lift her head and try to determine where the scream had come from.

"What are you waiting for?" Seifer yelled. "Get up, we need to get inside!"

"Someone screamed," Quistis shouted back. "We need to go see if they need help!"

There was another shrill shriek as they tried to get back on their feet, and a second wave of wind blew them back down.

Seifer seemed to be struggling with the dilemma of getting to safety versus helping the person in danger. For a moment, she thought his sense of self-preservation was going to win out, but he cursed through his teeth and extended his hand towards the direction of the scream. A clear blue shield materialized in front of them, blocking the storm.

They only had enough time to get up, before Quistis pointed at the protect spell, eyes wide.

"It's wearing off!" she yelled. _It should've lasted at least five minutes; what on earth is going on?_

"This isn't normal," Seifer shouted. "Are you junctioned?"

Quistis blanched. "Yes, but I don't have much," she replied. _Oh Hyne, I'm in no state to cast right now... What if I mess up again?_ _I could hurt someone._

She saw Seifer close his eyes for minute, looking like he was trying very hard to remember something. When he reopened them, the wind appeared not to affect him at all. He had most likely junctioned air magic to his elemental defense. "Come on," he said, and pulled her up on her feet along with him.

"I'm fine!" Quistis shouted at him. "I'm almost at the door. Go see if there's anyone else out here trapped!"

She began to make her way towards the door, but it was no easy feat keeping her balance; aside from the fierce wind, the waves that had formed in light of the storm were rocking the ferry mercilessly. With every step she took, a wave crashed against the hull of the ferry and sent water spraying all over the deck, making matters even worse.

Suddenly, there was a tug behind her neck and she began moving fast towards the door. Turning over her shoulder, she saw that Seifer had grabbed hold of her coat and was dragging her over to the entrance to the decks below. He gave her a hard shove and ran back to see if there was still anyone else outside without a second look.

Quistis turned her head back sharply to glare at him for treating her like a baby, but he was already a fair few feet away. She hated being helpless like this, but she hardly had anything of essence junctioned and she was only going to be a burden. The least she could do was go inside and help calm the passengers down. She was about to, when she heard a horrible crunching sound.

She had a hunch as to what it had been, but she wanted to make sure. She dragged herself back out to the deck again and looked up towards the sails. With a sinking feeling, she saw that she had been right.

The force of the wind was swinging the wooden pole of the sails back and forth so viciously, that a crack had appeared close to the base. Judging from the way it was moving, it was going to break any minute now.

_Dammit,_ she thought, clenching her teeth. "SEIFER!" she yelled into the wind, but it was too hard to make anything out in the storm.

"SEIFER!" Quistis yelled again. "HURRY!"

She was relieved to see him approaching a few seconds later. There was a young woman with him, her arm slung around his neck. From the way her weight hung on his side like dead weight, she realized the girl had passed out.

Quistis let out a sigh of relief and was about to open the door for them to hurry inside, when she heard another crunch, even louder than the one before it.

She saw Seifer stop dead in his tracks and whipped her head around to see what he was looking at.

The sail was falling.

Straight on top of them, and on top the rest of the people approaching right now to get to safety.

Without thinking, without making any conscious decision whatsoever, Quistis fell to her knees and touched the wooden deck.

The next thing she knew was excruciating pain.

* * *

Seifer saw it happen as if in slow motion.

Quistis fell down on her knees, her eyes alight with purpose.

Her hand touched the floor and white-blue light erupted before his eyes. The sheer force of the energy output threw him flat on his back, and he barely managed to make out something slick spreading on the deck floor and speeding towards the falling sail.

By the time he had managed to pull himself and the woman back up, he realized it was ice. The whole deck from Quistis's spot onwards and toward the sail had been frozen solid with thick, brilliant ice. The sail in particular must've been covered by a wall of ice three feet thick at least, effectively stopping its fall and freezing it into a precarious tilt.

A distinctive smell hung in the air for a split second, putrid, rancid, but it disappeared with the force of the blowing wind.

And then Quistis collapsed, and the world returned to its normal speed.

Cursing under his breath, Seifer handed the woman in his arms to one of the people who had been heading for the decks below and made a run for Quistis.

She wasn't unconscious, but she was shaking like mad, clutching the wrist of her casting hand like a lifeline.

Seifer cast another protect spell behind the people trying to step inside and knelt down to scoop Quistis up into his arms.

The moment they managed to finally get inside, it was as if someone suddenly turned up the volume. His ears were bombarded with screams and panicked yells, the howl of the wind raging on outside and the whip-like crash of the waves against the ferry's hull. Despite the chaos reigning around them, he could now also hear Quistis's labored breathing.

He squeezed his way through the throng to find a slightly secluded corner and set her down on the floor. Those who had followed him inside gathered around them and stared at Quistis, whose shaking was getting worse by the second.

"Let go, Trepe," Seifer said, trying to coax Quistis into letting go of her wrist. "I need to take a look."

Quistis shook her head violently, but at that moment, blood began to seep out of the cracks between her fingers.

"_Quistis_. Let go," Seifer said more firmly.

She did, just for a second, but the blood began pouring out in torrents and she covered it again immediately.

He had never seen her look so terrified before in his whole life.

And this was the woman who had gunned down a Black Widow without batting an eyelash.

He knew then that she realized her injury was severe, and judging by the magnitude of the spell she had just unleashed, so did he.

"Shit," Seifer cursed, and looked at the people surrounding them. "What are you all just standing there for? Someone get a med kit, bandages, _something_!" he growled at them.

One of the people, a young woman, seemed to snap out of it and left the small group in a sprint.

While he waited, Seifer pulled out his jacket and put it underneath Quistis's head like a pillow. She whimpered something that sounded faintly like 'Thank you.'

"What the hell did you do to yourself?" he muttered, helping her get into a more comfortable position.

Quistis shook still, and it was only now that Seifer noticed her face and lips looked deathly pale.

Right on time, the woman who had left to get help returned with a small med-kit in her hands. "I couldn't find a doctor," she spluttered. "And the staff is trying to help others and the captain-"

Seifer tore the med-kit out of her grasp and opened it, sighing in relief when he saw there was a roll of bandages in there. He rolled his sleeves up to work freely, and tugged Quistis's hand away from her wrist. He hastily wrapped a bandage around the wound as fast as he could. The white material of the gauze got tainted red within seconds. He wrapped two more around the first one, and it seemed to put a halt to the bleeding, but it wouldn't last long.

"Why the _fuck_ are you still here?" he yelled at the people staring in horror above them. "Unless one of you is a doctor or a certified White Caster, leave!"

The people did as they were told, staring at Quistis with white faces even as they departed.

"Seifer... No," Quistis moaned, when Seifer tried to get a closer look at her skin around the bandaged wound.

"What the hell did you cast?" he whispered at her once everyone was a safe distance away. He began to examine the skin carefully, and saw that there were marks surrounding the split vein that resembled burns.

The familiarity of this sight brought a shudder down his spine. He had seen wounds like these before.

"I..." Quistis whimpered. "I think it was... B-Blizzara..."

"_Blizzara_?" Seifer hissed. "Not even _Blizzaga_ can cause this sort of mayhem, Quistis," he said sharply. "Cut the crap, what did you cast?"

"I... I don't..."

"The _hell_ you don't know. Don't fuck with me, Quistis."

"…...heavenly father... protect... daughter in need..."

Seifer leaned closer, trying to make out what Quistis was saying.

"...guiding light... your grace..."

Praying. She was _praying._

"...protect from...I shall walk fearless in the face of-"

She came to a sudden stop, sucking in a breath and giving one last, violent seizure before her eyes rolled back in their sockets.

_Fuck, she's going into shock,_ Seifer thought. Doing the only thing he could think of, he dipped into his pocket and retrieved his cellphone. He punched the number quickly and lodged the phone between his ear and shoulder, while he tried to apply pressure on Quistis's wound with a free hand. "C'mon, c'mon..."

_"Seifer!"_

"Can you see us?" Seifer said.

_"Yes! What the hell is going on? The weather at the port is calm, it's only the ferry that's getting hit by the storm!"_

"I have no fucking clue; get Manu on the phone," he said.

There was a hurried request at the end of the line, and a couple of seconds later, Manu Fortenbras was talking to him.

_"What happened?"_

"I have someone severely wounded on board," Seifer explained. "I'm not sure, but... Fuck, I think she split her vein apart with a spell."

_"Is she conscious?"_

"No. She just lapsed into shock."

_"Bandage the wound, apply constant pressure and keep the wounded part above the heart, if possible. I'll do the rest." _

"OK. Tell Felix and the others to trade you whatever they have. Junction everything and the mother of everything, got it?"

_"Got it."_

"How far away are we?"

_"Should be here in ten minutes."_

"Go to port authority, show your IDs for clearance and wait for me there. They have a sick bay in the building."

* * *

Irvine leaned against the glass walls of the elevator, humming along to the tune of the tinny music.

So far it had been a relatively slow day, the only highlight being half the Festival Committee hunched over the edge of the quad, throwing up. Many young recruits weren't used to the sensation of Garden flying, and when Nida happened to be on his day off, that number usually tripled.

There was a tremor just as the elevator doors slid open to the third floor, and for a moment, Irvine thought they would stay in place and he'd get stuck on the bridge. Fortunately, as soon as he –cautiously- stepped out, the doors shut back in place.

He gave Shizuka his usual wink hello and trotted over to Squall's door to knock.

"Enter."

Irvine shut the door behind him and moved over to a chair, taking a seat. "Good mornin' Squall," he said.

"Is it?" the Commander grumbled. "I've been sliding from wall to wall all day long," he said, and as if on cue, the floor tilted a little and Irvine barely had time to hold on to the desk before his chair rolled away.

"Newbie?" he asked, grinning.

"_Inept_ newbie."

"So, how can I help you this fine day?"

Squall looked up from the paperwork in front of him. "The Esthar mission," he said, and reached for his cup of coffee. "I want you to organize it."

Irvine's eyebrows arched sky-high. He had been a SeeD for nearly a year and a half, had participated in, and even led, many missions, but he had yet to organize one from scratch. As a sharpshooter, he was used to receiving relatively simple orders. Location and target. And that was pretty much it.

"Me?" he wondered out loud. "Well, I'm honored, but I'm not sure if I'm the right guy for it."

"You're the perfect guy for it," Squall said, taking a sip of coffee. "We need to station small groups and lookouts all over the square, and you've spent enough time on terraces to know which spots are weaknesses from above. The Archbishop is going to be completely exposed, and the press is going to have a field day if he's taken down by a sharpshooter on our watch."

"All right, then I guess I'm your man," he said, nodding. "How big an operation are we talking?"

"I was originally going for small numbers," Squall said, checking his papers. "But I figured we might as well get some rookies in to support the perimeter, give them some field experience."

"You're expecting trouble?" Irvine asked, surprised.

"I'm expecting _some_ trouble, but no, nothing big enough to merit twenty five SeeDs. Which is why we won't charge for that many," he replied. "Still, they're doing nothing all day long, so might as well keep them on their toes."

"Okay, so what can I do with our resources?" Irvine asked.

"Pick the best and deploy them within the square in teams of two. I want two in comm, you included, three lookouts and the rest scattered along the perimeter."

"No security on the platform?"

"I'll be there," Squall said. "Along with Rinoa. We're supposed to be guests, but I'll keep an eye out. And I'm guessing Laguna will have a fair few palace guards up there to keep the crowd at bay."

"Noted. Any specific people you want to include?"

"As a matter of fact, yes," Squall said, and reached down to open one of his desk drawers. "Seifer's cronies are joining us soon."

"Yeah, I heard. You want them in?"

"It's as good an opportunity to test them as any," Squall said, pulling a manila envelope out of his desk drawer. "One of them is a communications specialist so he'll be your second in command. The other four, Seifer included, are for you to assign."

Irvine took the folder Squall handed him and tilted it to the side. Five thin stacks of paper slid out and Irvine picked them up.

"Which one is the comm guy?" Irvine asked, skimming through the names on each file.

"Wan Shu."

"What kind of a name is 'Wan Shu?' "

"It's a codename," Squall replied, frowning.

"You don't trust me enough to give me a real name?"

"Oh I do," he said, a little sourly. "Seifer doesn't. He claims he doesn't know them either."

"And you believed him?" Irvine asked, arching an eyebrow in disbelief.

"No, but I figured I'd let him win one. Keep him happy for the time being. Besides." He looked up, a hint of a smirk on his lips. "We already have people researching those five."

"Right, so… 'Wan Shu,' " Irvine repeated, glancing at the profile on his hands.

"I called G-Garden today and asked for two of them to arrive on location earlier," Squall explained. "Wan Shu is one of them. The other one is coming earlier on for a consult, mostly. He specializes in explosives, and you'll need to work with him when you compose the mission briefing we'll hand out."

"What to look out for, who to contact to diffuse a device…"

"Yeah, yeah, that sort of thing," Squall said, nodding. "His name is 'Ye Long.' "

"What about our own people?" Irvine asked. "Isn't Javin Klondett our go-to guy for explosives?"

"Like I said, I want to test them out," Squall said. "But I do want Klondett and Xyphias on the perimeter, just to be on the frequency and let us know if the other two try to pull any tricks."

"Gotcha."

"To recap," Squall said, intertwining his fingers. "Seifer's men need to be included, you and 'Wan Shu' are in comm, Klondett and Xyphias on the perimeter, and the rest is volunteer-only."

"What about Quistis, Selphie and Zell?" Irvine asked.

"Deploy them on the square; I want our best in there."

"Roger," Irvine said. "This sounds easier than I thought it would be," he added, grinning.

Squall looked up and Irvine thought he saw a sympathetic grin on his face, but it disappeared so fast he wasn't sure he hadn't imagined it. "If you have any questions regarding the paperwork, ask Shizuka."

Irvine blanched. "Paperwork?"

* * *

The residents of Balamb town would remember this day for a fair few months to come.

What could only be described as a ferry made of ice docked in their very port that day, and there were no few people who ventured outside to get a closer look. Upon closer inspection, they were disappointed to see that it wasn't really a vessel made of ice, but more than half of the sun deck was covered in it.

The second reason they would remember this day for a long time, was the reappearance of Seifer Almasy.

There had been rumors that he had stayed in Balamb for a few months after the Second Sorceress War, but very few people had seen him to even remember what he looked like and even fewer had believed there was any truth to be found in the rumors anyway. As such, it was a great surprise to see him spring outside the ice ferry with a woman in his arms and head straight for the port authority building.

The man in question was having difficulty himself to believe everything that had taken place that day, but his first priority right now was keeping Trepe alive.

He was accompanied by two petty officers who had been aboard the ferry. The two hung back a little, keeping a wary look on him and were probably ready to shoot at the slightest suspicious move.

They ran on ahead once they reached the building, and informed the guard about the situation. The man took one look at Seifer and stepped aside, allowing him to pass.

"Seifer!"

The blond turned to the source of the sound and saw Manu Fortenbras, pointing at the doorway next to him. "Over here; bring her in," he said, and went back in.

Seifer did as he was told and carried Quistis down the corridor and into the sick bay.

"You'd better be carrying every cure spell in existence," Seifer said, panting, as he laid Quistis down on one of the beds. "Where are the rest?" he asked, sweeping the room.

Manu stepped closer, pulling on a pair of surgical gloves he had borrowed from the resident physician. "It's only Felix and I. I'll tell you about the rest later," he said. "What happened?" he asked Seifer. Just as he did, he removed the blood-stained bandages on Quistis's arm carefully.

The moment he did, blood began to pour out of the gaping hole. Manu didn't waste any time marveling at the severity of the wound, and threw himself into stopping the bleeding.

"Casting accident," Seifer explained. "She says she cast a Blizzara, but I'm not buying it. That thing was like an iceberg. Casting it split her bloody wrist apart."

"I need more details, Seifer," Manu said. He paused his work just long enough to see if he had stopped the blood flow. "This... this isn't the kind of damage magic normally does to a person. She'd have to be casting non-stop for a month to get in such a bad shape."

"I don't think she was pushing herself. She told me she barely had anything junctioned at all," Seifer said.

"Well, apparently she lied to you," Manu said. "What was it you said she claimed to have used? Blizzara?"

"Yeah."

"And what was the effect?"

Seifer scoffed. "You can see for yourself," he said, pointing at the window of the sick bay that overlooked the port.

Manu turned around to look at the direction Seifer was pointing. The moment he saw the ferry, he froze still. It was fair to say that despite the many months they'd spent in each other's company, which included missions, Seifer had never seen Manu look as bewildered and surprised as he did right now. "That's... that's not-" he stammered.

"Possible. Yeah, I know," Seifer said. "Can you fix her?"

"I have already stopped the bleeding," Manu replied. "The damage isn't that severe; she just kept bleeding because she injured a muscle. And the vein already sealed itself up. I just needed to know what she cast to be able to repair the damage, but..."

"Would a description help?" Seifer offered.

"It might."

"Well..." Seifer began, rubbing his temple. "It was an ice spell alright, that much is true. But there was a bright blue flash before it was cast and it didn't behave like normal spells do. It wasn't even targeted; she just touched the Hynedamned deck and the ice started crawling like a snake till it reached the sail."

"I see..."

"And the smell..." Seifer added, grimacing.

That seemed to pique Manu's attention more than anything else Seifer had told him. "What smell?"

"Right after she cast it, there was this smell lingering in the air, like... " Seifer trailed off, trying to find the right way to describe it. "Like something rotten..."

"Sulfur?" Manu asked, his eyes narrow.

"Yes!"

_Sulfur,_ Seifer thought. _Why didn't I recognize this earlier? I should have._

"I've heard of this before," Manu said. He turned to look at Seifer knowingly. "I'm assuming you have, as well, judging from your expression."

"Forbidden magic?" Seifer asked.

Manu nodded. He shifted his attention back to Quistis, placing both hands on her bandaged wrist. There was an intense look of concentration on his face as he did this, and for a good three minutes or so, he remained completely still, nothing but his lips moving.

Seifer knew better than to interrupt him, so he fell silent. As he watched, beads of condensation began to form on Manu's forehead and his incantations grew more intense, though they never sounded like anything more than a string of endless, unintelligible words to Seifer. Manu spoke so fast, that he couldn't even make out the simplest of spell incantations, like a plain Cure.

At long last, he re-opened his eyes and let out a long-drawn breath. He looked down at Quistis, who was still pale and unconscious, and began to remove her bandages.

"The wound is closed," Manu said, panting slightly. "She's out of immediate danger, but I need to work on her a little longer. She injured muscles, bones, even a nerve. She's lucky she didn't hit an artery or she might've died."

"Yeah, do what you gotta do," Seifer said, nodding. "Do you want me to leave?"

"No, no, there's a few more things we need to talk about," Manu said and went to toss the slightly bloodied bandages in a trash can.

Seifer's eyes fell on Quistis's wrist as Manu did this, and he wasn't surprised to see it completely healed on the outside. There were still hints of redness and her skin was probably sore, but he knew that even if Manu left her as she was, she would make a full recovery; the worst part was over.

When Manu returned, he had also removed the surgical gloves. He leaned over Quistis again and pulled a vial out from one of his pockets. "I need some help," he said.

Seifer knew what to do, for he had seen it done before and had helped Manu in similar situations in the past. He held Quistis's head up and parted her lips as Manu placed the mouth of the vial against her lips and upended it slowly. He massaged her throat to help her swallow and continued to do so until the vial was empty.

Manu nodded to Seifer and the blond let go of Quistis, stepping back once more. The healer took hold of her wrist again, and placed his thumbs right against the red skin.

"Do you know what the downside of Forbidden magic is?" he asked Seifer, as if their previous conversation had stopped just a second ago.

"Hmmm?"

"We were talking about Forbidden magic; the sulfuric smell," Manu reminded him.

"Oh, right. And uhhh, no, no idea."

"It's called Forbidden for a reason," Manu began. "Used even sparingly, it can tear your whole body apart, much like it did to Miss Trepe here. It isn't magic just anyone, not even elite SeeDs, can cast. It's on the SeeD curriculum simply so people know what they're up against, and for that rare occasion someone capable of wielding it shows up."

"Can't be _too_ rare," Seifer said, frowning. "I know six people, eight including you and me, who can cast such magic."

Manu grinned; the expression looked alien on his usually serious face. "I should have been a little clearer," he said. "The kind of 'Forbidden' spells people like you and I can cast are more like... diluted versions of true Forbidden magic."

"Diluted?"

Manu nodded. "Back when magic was first practiced in the world, people who experimented and stretched its limits to discover new spells realized something. There's a reason we have that image of delicate, willowy people in robes as old magicians," he explained. "Such magic takes a toll on your body. In order to be able to withstand it, old magicians needed to infuse their magic with a protective agent."

Seifer ached an eyebrow, suddenly realizing where Manu was headed with this. "Sulfur?" he asked.

"Exactly. At first it was used to cast a Circle of Warding around the caster. It offered protection against intruders, demons and the like. "But as the years went on, magicians began to actually imbue their spells with it to protect their bodies. Their magic wasn't as potent, but they could survive casting much more advanced spells."

"So what you're saying, is that all Forbidden magic, the way we know it, is infused with sulfur?"

"Yes," Manu said. "In order to be able to cast it properly, you draw upon the sulfur deposits in your body. It's a subconscious act, but it's the only way to protect your body. And that's why there's always a distinctive smell lingering after someone casts a Forbidden spell."

"So that ice thing... that was a Forbidden spell?"

At this Manu frowned. "Not one that I know of," he said, and it was obvious that this very fact bothered him. "But we know very little about magic as it is."

"Wouldn't she have to have it junctioned though?" Seifer asked. "Forbidden or not, she needs to have prepared it ahead of time to be able to cast it."

"True," Manu said, giving Quistis's pale face a calculating look.

"Right... And why did it backfire on her like this?" Seifer asked.

"Oh, a million reasons," Manu replied, shrugging. "She may have not been properly focused, or she may have tried to use a spell beyond her capabilities-"

"She was an Instructor in Balamb Garden," Seifer cut him off. "A crappy one, if I may add, but she knew her stuff. She taught all advanced magic classes at the age of seventeen."

"So?"

"I dunno, I guess I never thought she wasn't capable of casting any known spell," Seifer said, frowning.

"Well, that's just it; it might've been something experimental," Manu said.

"Then she's got a lot of explaining to do," Seifer said, looking at Quistis. "Once she wakes up."

* * *

The first thing Quistis saw when she came to was a pair of dark brown eyes.

Gentle fingers were grazing the skin on her wrist and she could hear soft, firm murmurs above her.

She blinked, trying to regains focus and make something out of her blurry vision. There were more faces behind the one with the brown eyes, but she couldn't identify them quite yet.

"Can you tell me your name, Miss?" said the owner of the brown eyes.

"Quistis," she croaked. "Quistis Trepe."

"How many fingers am I holding up, Miss Trepe?" he asked, and held up what she hoped was four.

"Four," she replied.

"What's the last thing you can remember?" he asked, now massaging her wrist.

"I... I was aboard the ferry destined for Balamb with Seifer Almasy," she said weakly. "A storm broke out and I cast a spell to stop a falling sail. We went inside, and at some point I passed out."

"Good," said the man, pulling the stopper off a small vial with clear liquid. "Do you think you can swallow?"

Quistis nodded.

"Here," he said, and brought the bottle to her lips. He placed a hand behind her head and helped her tilt it up.

The medicine tasted odd. Not exactly bitter, but it left a metallic taste on her mouth, like blood.

Quistis made an attempt to sit up and felt three or so pairs of hands help her up. Everyone around her was a stranger, save Seifer, who came into view just then and leaned over the bed, next to the man who had given her the potion.

"All right, Trepe?" Seifer asked.

She nodded, holding her head with one hand. She felt the room spin a little, like she had just woken up from a hangover, but other than that, she felt fine. Her eyes went immediately to her wrist, and she was shocked to see that the skin there was smooth. The wound had healed completely, save from a bit of reddening on the skin that had been previously split open.

"How...?" she whispered.

"Seifer brought you into port authority once the ferry docked. I attended to your wounds. The vein isn't entirely healed," the other man hurried to say. "You'll need to refrain from casting for a couple of weeks."

"Lovely bedside manner, man," said someone from Quistis's right with a chuckle. "Try not to take it to heart, Miss. He's always that way."

Quistis turned to face the speaker, and nearly lost her composure for a moment there.

Before her, was the most beautiful man she had ever laid eyes upon. And not just in person. His facial features were so gentle, so delicate, that it was hard to believe he was human. He had long, silver hair worn in a ponytail, eyes the color of sapphires and skin that looked like it belonged on a baby instead of a man. His face was rather colorless, save for the pink tint of his lips.

She tried not to stare, but it was hard to stop.

"I think you broke her," said the healer, looking the slightest bit amused.

Seifer rolled his eyes. "Enough goofing around," he said, and extended his arm towards Quistis. "Can you sit up?" he asked.

Quistis shook herself mentally and nodded, feeling her cheeks redden somewhat. She was pretty sure she knew who the people around her were, and she wasn't exactly thrilled that their first impression of her would be that of a bumbling schoolgirl.

Seifer helped her sit up. As she took her surroundings in, she realized they were inside some sort of infirmary. She turned her attention back to the men around her, offering a smile. "Your team?"

"Part of it," said Seifer. "The White Caster is Manu Fortenbras," he said, pointing at the man Quistis had first seen when she'd woken up.

The healer could only be described as impeccable. Though he was the one who had just been working on her wounds, he looked as if he had just stepped out of his house, clothes ironed to perfection.

He wore his black hair in a ponytail as well, but it was vastly different from the one of the silver-haired man. Whereas the latter's hair reminded Quistis of Irvine's haphazard ponytail, the first one's hair, like the rest of his appearance, was flawless. There was something particularly regal about the way he held himself. He gave Quistis a curt salute in acknowledgment.

"Thank you for your help," Quistis said warmly. "I can cast a few white spells myself, but nowhere near this level. I owe you a big favor. And the salute really isn't necessary," she added with a grin.

"The pretty boy is Felix Von Troy," Seifer went on.

Felix gave Quistis a comical bow, his eyes twinkling.

"Nice to meet you," she said, smiling at him.

"There's three more, but I'm told they already went ahead to Esthar," Seifer said, looking a little put off by this. "Squall called, apparently."

"He said they were needed to plan the security measures concerning the Esthar mission," Manu explained. "I sent Nyx along because, well... if anything happens, Jack and Rhys won't be able to make it on their own."

"This is all fine and good, but no-one has bothered to tell me what the Esthar mission_ is_, yet," Seifer said, exasperated.

It was Quistis who replied. "We were hired by President Loire," she said. "We're to organize a party to protect him and the Archbishop and scout the area in general for any undesirables. There's a ceremony taking place at Liberty Square on the 29th for E-Garden and they'll both be attending."

Quistis listened to Seifer and his two teammates discuss the matter among themselves, and directed her gaze back to her wrist.

It was tender to the touch, but it really did seem to have healed very well. The only issue now was telling Squall and Xu about it. She merely nodded when Manu told her they were boarding the ship headed for Fisherman's Horizon in fifteen minutes, still agonizing over what her injury meant for the upcoming mission.

She hopped off the infirmary bed, and began pulling on her coat to get ready for the trip.

It was then that she noticed Seifer was speaking with his associates, but was keeping his eyes fixed on her.

The expression on his face was livid, and his eyes seemed to be telling her she was in for an interrogation once they were out of port authority.

She looked away, frowning, and pulled her hair up into a tight ponytail.

_Let it come._

_

* * *

_

**A/N: **Whew, that was long. But hopefully satisfying and not riddled with errors like the previous upload. I was skimming through it a few days ago and just about died. I proof-read, but it's hard to notice errors in text you've gone over about a thousand times already. I think I had written 'assume' three times in one single paragraph. And we all know what happens when you assume...

On that note, I'm in the market for a beta. One with a good grasp of grammar and vocabulary, eager to give me all the constructive criticism I can take (and that's a lot, trust me!), and with just enough free time to be able to have a chat with me once every week or so about the chapter I'm writing. I would try the beta system on the site, but the thought alone of going through so many profiles exhausts me.

Any takers?

**04/10/2010 EDIT:**

**- 5****th**** scene, my version of Dollet's history has been adjusted to fit canon.**


	8. Chapter 7: Vox Populi

**DISCLAIMER: **Everything you recognize is property of Square.

**A/N: **At the rate I'm updating this fic, I'll probably be done by the time humans discover time travel. You have my everlasting gratitude if you're still somehow following this story.

Many thanks go to grayglube and msstarlight for beta-ing the first two scenes of this chapter. Your help and effort was greatly appreciated girls, and sorry for dropping off the face of the earth like I did.

There is little to say about this chapter other than the fact that it marks the official end of the 'prologue' and heralds the coming of the main plot. On a side note, is anyone else getting irritated by ffnet's annoying hiccups like eating up words and spaces and refusing to accept simple formatting? x.x I know I am.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 7**: Vox Populi

* * *

_"It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure,_

_to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful._

_There is more security in the adventurous and exciting,_

_for in movement there is life and in change there is power." __**–**__**Alan Cohen**_

_**

* * *

**_

"What the hell do you mean, Quistis is injured? What happened?"

_"I didn't hurt your much-cherished prodigy if that's what you were thinking, Leonhart. It was a casting accident."_

Squall Leonhart ran his palm down his face, hunched over his desk with the receiver of the phone stuck to his ear. He had no idea what on earth had merited the use of magic during an escort mission, but he most certainly hadn't expected to hear the words 'Hey, there was an accident' first thing in the morning.

Much less having those words concern Quistis Trepe.

Quistis didn't _have _casting accidents. Rinoa excluded, she was the best caster in Balamb Garden. She knew spells most elite SeeDs wouldn't have dared to touch. She had studied magic so extensively she could read patterns only found in creatures' spells and replicate them after a single encounter. She was an MG Rank 3 before anyone else had even started casting simple Fire spells for Hyne's sake.

_What the hell happened?_ Squall wondered, hovering back and forth between curiosity and fear for Quistis's welfare.

"What _kind_ of casting accident?" he asked, hoping the answer was far less troubling than what he was imagining right now.

_"Do you seriously want to do this over the phone?"_ Seifer said wearily._ "I just called to let you know before you saw it yourself and served her my gnads on a silver platter without giving me time to explain. She was hurt, now she's fine, and we're boarding a ship to FH in five minutes."_

…_It does sound like something I would've done,_ Squall thought.

He wasn't particularly pleased by the half-baked explanation, but it was obvious Seifer wasn't willing to give more details over the phone. Deciding it was best to clean the mess up as soon as possible and see Quistis's injury for himself, his mind kicked into what Rinoa jokingly called 'Commander Mode.'

"Stay in FH once you get there," he ordered. "Is the rest of your team with you?"

_"Yes. Are the other three already there?"_

"That's what I've been told. I'm meeting with them later today," Squall replied. "There will be someone from Balamb Garden in FH to pick you up once you arrive. In the meantime, try to avoid another 'casting accident' and bear in mind that Quistis outranks you all."

_"Pick us up? I thought you weren't issuing aircrafts for this mission. Otherwise we could've been in Esthar days ago and would have avoided this sh- charade."_

Squall had to admit that he was impressed Seifer had not commented on the part about Quistis being the unofficial leader for the remainder of the mission. Still, it was probably too much to ask for him to forgo any snark whatsoever.

"This won't be a standard issue SeeD aircraft," Squall replied. "And I don't have to explain myself to you," he added in a dignified tone, reminding Seifer who was calling the shots. "Quistis will know it's us once she sees it; that's all you need to know."

_"Whatever you say, _Commander,_"_ Seifer sneered.

_Damn right whatever I say._ "The aircraft will be stationed at the docking bay by the north exit of the city at exactly 0500 hours."

_"Anything else?"_ It was a reasonable question, but Seifer's usual tone of voice was capable of making anything sound annoying.

"That will be all," Squall said, and hung up without another word. _Fucking Seifer..._ he thought, groaning.

Why was he the one who had to deal with him even now that Cid was back? Granted, he was the Commander and had the first say in missions, but Seifer was more of a bureaucratic problem at the moment, and he thought he was done with paperwork. Wasn't that what he had gotten himself a secretary for?

_Speaking of which..._

Running a hand through his hair, Squall reached out for the intercom on his desk and pressed the gray push-to-talk button. Shizuka's voice came through the speaker.

_"Yes, Commander?"_

"Get me a list of all pilots currently available to fly the Ragnarok," Squall said. "Please," he added as an afterthought.

Rinoa had given him no small amount of grief over the way he communicated with his peers, and had insisted he make 'please' and 'thank you' part of his every day vocabulary.

_Just because you're their superior doesn't mean you get to be an inconsiderate meanie._

_"Yes, sir. Just a moment,"_ said Shizuka.

Squall drummed his fingers on the desktop as he heard Shizuka clicking away on the keyboard on the other end of the line. He idly wondered whether Selphie would be on the list, but then recalled she was busy with the Festival Committee.

_"I have your list, sir,"_ said Shizuka. _"Three pilots are currently available: Tikka Bedlam, Ephram Gale and Yujin Gautler."_

_Gale is new and will probably shit his pants at the sight of Seifer,_ Squall thought. _Talk about fearless pilots... Bedlam is good; better than Gautler. _

"Contact the docking bay and tell them to prep the Ragnarok," Squall said. "Bedlam will fly it, but I want Gautler there as well to co-pilot," he said. "And get me one more SeeD as an escort. Any from rank twenty and above are fine."

More distant clicking followed his order. _"Will do, sir. Destination?"_ Shizuka asked.

"Fisherman's Horizon."

_"Departure time?"_

"0900 hours; Esthar time."

_"Objective?"_

_Bring me the head of Seifer Almas- _"Retrieve Quistis Trepe's team from FH. Party of four."

_"Will that be all, Commander?"_

_No, I would also like a new pen to stab myself in the eye with; this one's not sharp enough,_ Squall thought, his eyes sweeping over the plastic ball-point pen on his desk._ And while you're at it, calculate the amount of fuel we're about to waste on the Ragnarok and the cost to replenish-_

_"Commander, sir...?" _

"That's all, Shizuka. Thank you," he said, in a tone so resigned that Shizuka undoubtedly realized he wasn't in the best of spirits this morning.

_"Perhaps I could bring you more coffee?"_

"…...Yes, please."

* * *

Seifer slipped the phone back in his pocket, grumbling as he did so.

It figured that they'd send an aircraft now that one of the Precious Six was injured. And there would undoubtedly be a truckload of paperwork to fill out once they arrived in Balamb Garden; missions involving any sort or form of a mishap always did.

He made his way back to his teammates and Quistis, who were already standing in line to board the next ship bound for Fisherman's Horizon.

They had spent nearly two hours in Balamb waiting for a replacement to come and luggage to get unloaded since they had totaled the _Dollet Star_. For a brief, joyous moment, he wondered whether B-Garden was going to have to reimburse Dollet for their vessel...

...then realized he wouldn't put it past Squall to take it all out of his salary.

_Let him try. I'll key that Hynedamned Cactuar XF before he can say 'Whatever',_ he thought, remembering the gleaming, hunter green sports car he had spotted in B-Garden's parking lot during his brief stay there. He hated to admit it, but a sickening wave of jealousy had swept over him the moment he found out Squall was the owner of the car to end all cars.

"You called Squall?" Quistis asked as soon as Seifer reached her and his two subordinates.

She didn't look pleased that he had. She was most likely intending to downplay her injury, but Seifer was in no mood to cover for her and land his own arse in trouble when Squall found out. "Yep," he said.

"Great." Quistis groaned, rubbing the bridge of her nose, something Seifer knew she always did when under stress.

Deciding he didn't give a shit that she felt pressured, he shifted his attention over to the long line leading up to the ship, noticing it was barely moving. "What's taking so long?" he asked.

"There was a woman aboard the ferry who fainted," Felix Von Troy replied. "She wants to continue to FH, but her family is trying to convince her to spend the night in Balamb and rest."

Seifer turned to look at the silver-haired man. "How do _you_ know?"

"They were talking about it right by the vending machine," Felix said, indicating the soda can in his hand. "They're the ones holding up the line."

Sure enough, as Seifer craned his neck to take a better look at the very front of the queue, he saw a family of five arguing, a girl with long black hair in their midst looking mutinous. Seifer squinted, studying the young woman's face; she looked familiar. He nearly had the answer when Quistis beat him to the punch and said out loud what he was thinking.

"Isn't that the girl you went to help on the sun deck?" she asked. "The one who screamed."

Seifer nodded. "She was unconscious by the time I got to her."

Quistis stood up on tiptoes to get a better view. "She _does_ look quite pale; I hope she's okay."

"I just hope she makes up her damn mind about going or staying," Seifer grumbled while he diverted his gaze.

It took nearly a quarter of an hour until a petty officer kindly asked the family to stop holding up the line and boarding finally began. As the four SeeDs moved up the queue, Seifer saw the family head down towards them and back into the city, having, apparently, decided to spend the night there.

The girl along with her four companions squeezed past the crowd and came up next to the SeeDs. Seifer saw the girl he had helped out glance at him once before turning away, her cheeks flushing a deep shade of red.

"Aaaaaand the Seifer Almasy fan club grows yet again, gentlemen," Felix said, chuckling. "And lady," he added.

"You think so? I'd say she looks mortified, rather than enamored," Manu pointed out, inspecting the girl discreetly.

Quistis turned to look at the young woman as well, and found that she agreed with Manu. She had been Seifer's instructor long enough to remember the yearning, sometimes wolfish looks of cadets infatuated with him all too well, and this one didn't fit the description.

"Gee, thanks," Seifer said, half-glaring at Manu. "Nice to know I inspire-"

"Excuse me."

Seifer turned around, coming face-to-face with a middle-aged man. He was one of the people who had been talking to the blushing girl, Seifer realized.

"Yes?" he said.

"I won't take up any of your time; I'd just like to thank you for helping my daughter on the ferry," the man said kindly, offering Seifer his hand.

_Well now... This is a first,_ Seifer thought. It wasn't exactly often that people asked to shake his hand for any reason other than to rip it out of its socket."Uhhh... No problem," Seifer replied, returning the handshake.

"You, too, Miss," he told Quistis, his gaze staying on her a little longer than it had on Seifer. He had undoubtedly witnessed her casting, and didn't quite know what to make of the incident.

"You're welcome," Quistis said with a polite smile, eager to move on ahead. The man's intense scrutiny was making her uncomfortable.

"Have a safe journey," he wished them all, and went on ahead to meet up with the rest of his family.

"_Safe_," Seifer repeated with a scoff. "Here's hoping Quistis will manage to save the day without demolishing _this_ ship," he added wryly, as they moved up ahead.

"Funny," Quistis said, frowning.

"Please forgive him, Miss Trepe," Manu interjected. "I'm afraid my superior has a hard time following social decorum."

"Oh don't worry about it," Quistis replied, smiling. "This is nothing new to me. I knew your _superior_ back when he thought peeing on a bonfire was the best way to put it out."

Seifer stopped dead in his tracks and Quistis suddenly wished she had a nice, cushy armchair and a bag of popcorn to sit back and enjoy the effect of her revelation.

As Seifer turned around slowly, Felix met his murderous glare with a highly amused expression, biting down on his lip. "Wow," he said, making an obvious effort not to laugh out loud.

Manu simply looked embarrassed for his leader's sake.

The remaining few minutes it took to reach the end of the line and show their tickets Quistis spent in gleeful silence. She was well aware of Seifer's eyes on her, and she knew he was calculating the best way to take revenge for his humiliation in front of his peers, but she didn't care. The memory of the look on his face alone would be something to cherish for years down the road.

"No seating numbers on the tickets," Felix said once they were inside, glancing down at his stub. "Let's grab those four over by the window," he said, pointing towards the back.

Quistis followed the direction of his finger and saw the seats Felix had pointed out. She was suddenly reminded of a B-Garden library book called _A Day in the Life of a Train Conductor_, which the train-savvy Selphie had pored over for days and had then bored everyone with trivia they had never asked to hear. She had called the seating arrangement an _'Opposite Club-Bay seat', _which, in Balmish, meant that it was simply two pairs of seats opposite each other with a table in the middle.

_I can't believe I even remember this,_ Quistis thought with a wry grin, and began to follow Felix and Manu over to the seats the first had picked out.

"Oh _noooo_, me and Quistis haven't seen each other _properly_ in two years," Seifer suddenly interjected, looping his arm around Quistis's shoulder. "We need some privacy to catch up, don't we?" he added, shifting his gaze down to Quistis's face and giving her what was most likely the creepiest smile she had ever witnessed.

And that included Adel's triumphant smirk.

Quistis looked from his hand to his face and back again, flabbergasted.

"We'll see you in FH," Seifer said, waving at the other two while dragging Quistis down the aisle to a pair of seats in the far back of the room.

"Is this about the peeing thing-?" Quistis began once they were out of earshot.

"Sit."

She crossed her arms in front of her chest, meeting his gaze. "Do you want me to roll over, as well? Maybe fetch-"

"We need to talk," Seifer said, and she suddenly realized he was going to question her about the ferry incident right then and there. And maybe take revenge for the peeing comment once he was done.

The seats Seifer had picked out were for two people only, clearly an indication that he wanted to speak to her in private. They were both window seats, opposite one another, separated by a small table. _Our own personal buffer,_ Quistis drawled inwardly.

She threw him a defiant glare, silently daring him to do his worst, and sat down.

Seifer followed her lead, slipping into his seat right across her, but didn't say a word for a fair few minutes. He just drummed his fingernails on the table, let loose long drawn out sighs, or stared at her bandaged wrist.

At long last, he spoke. "How are you feeling?"

Quistis couldn't help but gape. "Is _that _why you wanted to be alone? To ask about my injury?"

"Fine, forget I asked."

"I'm feeling great," Quistis replied, not in the mood to stall the discussion any longer. "Why did you want to talk to me in private?"

Seifer's eyes scanned the vicinity to make sure no one was listening in on the conversation. When he turned to look at her again, he leaned across the table and dropped his voice down to barely above a whisper. "Your little spell. I _know _you lied to me, so-"

"May I take your order, sir?"

Jolting up slightly at the sudden interruption, Seifer turned to look over his shoulder, only to find a woman dressed in dark blue uniform standing next to him. She appeared to be part of the vessel's staff, a waitress of sorts, and was holding a notepad, ready to take dinner orders.

_Dinner at midnight, lovely,_ Seifer thought. _I won't be able to sleep for hours._ He _was_ a little hungry though, come to think of it, but he'd rather finish this conversation without pausing between every other sentence for a bite.

"Nothing for me, thank you," he said.

"Are you sure?" the woman asked. "It's a long trip to Fisherman's Horizon and we won't be serving breakfast."

"Fine, uhh... I'll have the chocobo sandwich and a Reagan, straight," Seifer replied. _I'll need the alcohol to get some sleep later._

"Very well, sir," said the young woman, jotting his order down on her pad. "And for you, ma'am?"

"Black coffee and a BLT, thank you," Quistis replied.

"Thank you for your order!" said the waitress, and moved on to the seats across from Seifer and Quistis.

The moment she left, Seifer rounded up on Quistis again. "Why did you lie about what you had junctioned?" he whispered. "Did-?"

"I'm terribly sorry to interrupt, sir, but I just remembered-"

Rolling his eyes, Seifer turned around again to face the waitress who had hurried back to them. "What is it?" he asked.

"Our chocobo meat is marinated in a sauce of your preference. Barbecue, spicy or our specialty, honey and Sylkis."

_Of _all_ the stupid things... _"Plain is okay; I really don't want-" Seifer began.

"I'm sorry, sir, but you need to pick one," the waitress cut him off, smiling.

Seifer stared at her for a full minute in silence. Her smile didn't falter, nor did she blink one single time. He wondered whether she was human at all. "Fine, I'll have the spicy sauce," he said.

"Will that be mild, medium, or hot?"

_Relax... Cool. Don't kill the alien waitress; she's just doing her job. _"Medium."

"Alright, thank- Oh!"

_Hyne, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference._ "What?"

"I forgot, we're all out of spicy sauce."

_Oh for the love of- _"Then go with barbecue."

"All right... And will that be white bread or rye?"

The fact that Quistis was barely managing to conceal her chuckles was not helping matters.

"You know what? Just the Reagan will be fine," Seifer said, clenching and unclenching his fists in an attempt to keep his hands occupied and not lunge at the waitress.

"But sir, it'll be another five hours before we-"

"I said it's fine, I'm not really hungry."

"But you said you wanted the chocobo sandwich just bef-"

"Fine, just pick whatever you want and go with it."

"I can't do that."

"Then hold the sandwich and just bring me the Reagan."

"You want me to hold the sandwich?"

_Don't, don't, don- _"…...I want you to hold it between your knees."

It had the desired effect; the waitress left in a huff, muttering profanities under her breath. Seifer relaxed in his seat, letting out a contented sigh. He knew she was probably going to spit –or worse- in his drink, but it was worth it.

"Nice," Quistis said.

"She wouldn't leave!" Seifer exclaimed.

Quistis shook her head in disbelief and turned to stare at the view outside the window. They were already on the move, speeding past the dark, clear waters of the Balmish Archipelago. There was nothing in sight on the horizon, and probably wouldn't be for hours. The way from Balamb to FH was completely free of any land whatsoever.

"Just because the waitress was a pain in the arse doesn't mean I forgot what I wanted to say," Seifer said, reclaiming Quistis's attention.

She turned her head wearily, deciding to just get this over with and enjoy the view later. "All right, I'm listening," she said, preparing herself for the worst.

"What spell did you cast on the ferry?" Seifer asked.

_What spell indeed,_ Quistis thought wryly. "I told you, I wanted to cast a Blizzara, but-"

"Bollocks," Seifer interrupted. "You're telling me a Blizzara froze the fucking sail solid?"

"I don't know what happened, but that was what I _intended_ to cast," Quistis said earnestly. At that moment she hadn't done any serious thinking, except realizing that she had to _do_ something, so she had conjured up the first spell that came to mind, and she didn't have that many to begin with.

"Do you have any Forbidden magic junctioned?" Seifer asked, catching her completely off guard.

"What?"

"Answer the question."

"You want to know what I have junctioned? Ten or so Blizarras, five Meltdowns, five Firas and seven Curas," Quistis listed them off.

Seifer smirked. "You're not a very good liar."

"I'm not lying!" Quistis hissed.

"Are you under the impression that I don't know what Forbidden magic looks and smells like?" Seifer asked.

"For the _last _time, I don't have anything like that junctioned, and even if I did, I don't see how that would concern you," she said, glaring at him.

"It concerns me when you're drawing unnecessary attention-"

Quistis knew there was a reason they'd denied Seifer SeeDship in Balamb Garden, and here it was; SeeD Seifer, preoccupied with proper procedures and protocol, was even more annoying than regular Seifer.

"Oh for Hyne's sake!" she exclaimed, intending to end the suspicion once and for all. She grabbed his hand and yanked it over, pressing it against her forehead. "Here, I'll prove it! Try to draw from me and see what's in there."

Not convinced she was being truthful, Seifer did so. He closed his eyes and concentrated, his hand getting warmer on her forehead. Quistis felt the familiar, yet disconcerting sensation of someone invading her mind that always occurred when someone tried to draw magic from her. Every SeeD's initial reaction was to resist mentally and drive the invader away, so it was always difficult to relax and allow an ally to freely draw from them.

Although calling Seifer an ally was a bit of a stretch. _Perhaps non-hostile entity is a better term,_ she thought. _Better yet, entity-who-is-usually-hostile-but-has-the-occasional-moment-of-clarity._

"Well?" she said, shuddering slightly at the sensation.

Seifer pulled his hand away, looking a little disappointed at not having caught her red-handed. "Hmm... I guess you _were_ telling the truth," he said.

"Yes, I was. But _you _weren't."

Seifer arched a questioning eyebrow at her. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm 'drawing attention'?" she repeated. "Please, since when do _you_ care about protocol? That's not the reason you're itching to know what happened. It's because of _this,_" she said, and pulled one of his sleeves up.

Seifer's forearm came into view, but it wasn't bare.

The whole limb, from the wrist up to the elbow was wrapped in strange-looking bandages. They looked as if they were made of silk, but at the same time strong enough to test against a T-Rexaur's teeth. They would have looked ordinary to an outsider, but anyone who had healed or had been healed on the field would be able to tell the difference; ordinary bandages didn't look so luxuriously crafted.

Seifer pulled the sleeve back down, frowning. He didn't know how Quistis had noticed; it was probably back on the ferry when he had taken his sweater off, but he hadn't expected her to pay any attention to him when she was bleeding to death. More to the point, within his panic to bandage her wound, he had slipped up.

"Oh, you thought I didn't notice?" Quistis said with a smirk, reading his expression.

She knew then that she had called him out on something important, because he fell silent and turned away, either doing some quick thinking or trying to contain his anger.

"Are they the same as mine?" Quistis pressed on.

"What?" he asked, scowling at her.

"Your wrists," Quistis clarified. "Are they hurt?"

Seifer said nothing.

Realizing she was getting nowhere with intrusive questions, she changed her tone. "How did it happen?" she asked, her voice softer, compassionate.

"Nothing _happened_," Seifer said. "Doesn't Chicken Wuss wear bandages when he trains?"

"_Zell_ is a martial artist," Quistis said. "He fights with his hands. _You're_ a gunblade specialist."

"Is it a crime to train in physical combat even if you use a weapon?" Seifer countered.

"No, but-"

"Your dinner is here. Coffee and BLT?"

Quistis nearly let out a groan at the interruption, feeling the slightest bit of understanding for Seifer's earlier behavior. She felt like snapping at the waitress herself, but first off, it was a different girl, and second, she couldn't have known what she was interrupting.

"Here," Quistis said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. She accepted the package the waitress gave her and set it down in front of her. "Thank you."

"And a Reagan, straight, for the gentleman," said the waitress.

"Thanks," Seifer said, taking the drink in his hand.

"You're welcome. Enjoy your meal!"

Quistis watched Seifer gulp down nearly half his drink in one go. She gave him some time to gather his thoughts and speak, but it soon became evident that he wasn't going to make an effort to resume the conversation they'd been having.

"Well?" she asked.

Seifer glared at his reflection on the window. There was a lot more he wanted to ask Quistis, but he doubted she would be cooperative after what had just transpired. She was a sharp woman, he loathed to admit, and asking more questions about the incident would only help her draw more parallels between their injuries.

_Better nip it in the bud, _he thought.

He turned to look at her, signaling the end of the discussion with one single, imperious glare.

"Eat your sandwich, Quistis."

* * *

"...and from what I hear, Esthar's got a lot goin' for it aside from all the technology. So what do you say? You, me, Saturday night, discovering all the city has to offer?"

The blond girl looked up from the notepad in her hands. "I say that I'm in the middle of inventory right now and if Pyke catches me slacking off, I won't hear the end of it," she said, checking the bottom shelf of the bookcase in front of her. "Besides... Aren't you with Selphie?"

Irvine shrugged and leaned back against the wall. "Not really. We have an understanding; she's cool with me seein' other people and so am I."

The girl smiled and stood up on tiptoes to reach the first book off the top shelf. "I don't know if _I'm_ cool with it, though."

Irvine plucked the book off the shelf for her with ease and pretended to hand it to her. As soon as she made a move to get it, he pulled it out of sight and behind his back, leaning in closer. "No book unless you give me an answer," he said, grinning. "C'mon, Celia..."

"I... I'm not sure, Irvine," Celia said, blushing a little. "I don't want to get in the middle of something complicated-"

"Nothin' complicated about it. Don't worry about Selphie one bit. We'll just go out, have fun, and we'll take it from there," he said.

The blonde met Irvine's gaze, falling silent. She appeared to be thinking it over, when she suddenly whipped one arm around his waist and grabbed the book.

"Hey now!"

"I'll take that, thank you," Celia said, turning it around to check the title. "And my answer is 'maybe'," she said with a smirk, jotting down the title on her notepad.

"Maybe?" Irvine repeated, but he already knew he'd won her over. "That don't—"

"This doesn't look like the Commander's office."

"No, ya _think_? Was it the _books_ that tipped you off, or the fact that we're on the bloody _first_ floor when they told us to report-"

"I _know_ what they told us, I just thought-"

"That the best way to get to the third floor was going around in circles?"

"Oh shut up, I don't see you-"

"Can I help you?" asked Celia, walking away from Irvine and toward the group of three strangers who had just walked into the library.

Irvine shifted his attention over to the men as well. They were SeeDs all right, judging by their uniforms, but they were a dark shade of gray instead of B-Garden's standard-issue black. _Galbadia Garden SeeDs,_ Irvine thought, recognizing the uniforms.

"Yes, please. We want to get to Commander Leonhart's office," said one of them.

"The Commander's office?" Irvine cut in, seizing them all up.

_Seifer's team,_ he realized, and upon closer scrutiny, he found that he recognized one of them.

It was the one he knew from Seifer's profiles as 'Wan Shu', a lanky man of medium height with hazel, bespectacled eyes and light brown hair. Irvine knew most SeeDs weren't exactly bulky since they relied on magic aside from weapons, but he found it hard to believe that this man had any sort of physical prowess whatsoever.

The other half of the vocal duo was also brown-haired but considerably shorter. His body structure reminded Irvine of Zell, though he, too, didn't look like a particularly capable fighter.

The third man was a different story. Taller than the rest, he had jet-black hair that came down to his chin and a facial features that strongly resembled those of a fox. He had the lean, athletic body of a person who worked out daily and he was the only one of the three who had yet to speak.

"You need special permission either from Headmaster Kramer or the Commander himself to get there," Irvine went on.

"We're expected," said the shortest one.

"You're Seifer's men, yeah?" Irvine asked.

"That's right; we're supposed to meet Commander Leonhart in..." The man wearing glasses checked his watch. "Ten minutes... ago."

Irvine chuckled. "I'll take you up," he said. Turning around to Celia, he gave her a wink and a wave. "See ya later, babe. Think it over," he said and motioned the three men to follow him outside.

The interruption wasn't welcome, but he decided that pressuring Celia too much might have an effect opposite to the desired one. Letting her cool off for a bit was the best strategy, he mused, knowing already from the look on her face that her final answer would be yes.

By the time they left the library, he had already taken his mind off her and instead focused on the three visitors.

There were five men total in Seifer's team, but Squall had mentioned he was expecting only some of them ahead of schedule to help coordinate the Esthar mission. Having read their profiles, he knew he would be working with two of them, and he was relieved to see that the silent man wasn't included.

The other two seemed chatty enough, perhaps even a little _too_ chatty. He had a feeling Squall would take a liking to their quiet counterpart.

"So, you folks all from G-Garden?" Irvine asked, trying to make idle conversation on the way over to the third floor.

"Yeah," said the short man. "Oh, sorry mate, we forgot to introduce ourselves, I'm—"

"I know, I've seen your files," Irvine said. "I'm the one leading the mission, so we'll be working together for a couple of days. You're… Ye… something?" he asked, trying to remember the code name that had come with the file.

"Ye Long," said the man, grinning. "But that's my call sign, I'm Rhys Puck," he said, and held out his hand for Irvine to shake.

Irvine blinked at him. "Er… That's… your real name?"

"Yeah… why?"

"Aren't you guys supposed to be all… I dunno, undercover?" Irvine asked, feeling a little silly as the question left his lips.

The three men looked at each other questioningly.

"Come again?" said the one wearing glasses.

"Seifer said… that—" Irvine began, but came to an abrupt stop, the answer dawning on him. "He was messing with us, wasn't he? You're cool with giving out your real names?"

Rhys chuckled. "Yep."

"Seifer probably did that to see if he could get away with it," the man in glasses said. "See if he could get you to agree to any of his terms, no questions asked."

_He won't be getting away with much else after Squall finds out,_ Irvine thought.

"Anyway, I'm Jack Gonzalo," said the bespectacled man.

"You're the comm guy, right?" Irvine asked.

"Sure am," Jack said. "And the mute in the back is—" he began, indicating the tall, dark-haired man.

For a second there Irvine thought the guy really was a mute, which would explain the lack of talking, but after throwing a sharp glare at Jack, he spoke.

"Nyx Hume," he said, nodding curtly. No further details whatsoever were given.

"Nice to meet ya," Irvine said. "I'm Irvine Kinneas—"

"We know who you are," Jack said, grinning. "You're somewhat of a legend back in G-Garden."

"Really?" Irvine said, unable to hide a surprised and self-satisfied grin.

"Actually, I'd just enrolled a couple of months before you left," Rhys said.

"So why exactly am I a legend?" Irvine asked.

"Still the only man from G-Garden who passed Wilson's test with flying colors," Jack said.

"You're kidding," Irvine said with a chuckle, remembering the man all too well. He was the firearms instructor of Galbadia Garden, notorious for putting the cadets through a strenuous, nearly impossible test to weed out the ones suited for long-range firearms. The day Irvine had aced the exam, the usually reserved and grumpy old man had given him a rare smile. "That old geezer's still alive an' kickin'?"

"Yes, but not for long," Jack replied. "Last I heard he had retired. Or will be retiring, not sure."

"Probably thought it was as good a time as any since we've been out of commission for a while now," Rhys added in.

"Judging from your files, you've kept busy," Irvine pointed out. "There was an influx of SeeDs and cadets to the other Gardens, but a few cells and teams have still been going on missions. Yours included."

The observation didn't have the desired effect; Irvine had expected a furtive glance, or any sort of indication that he had stumbled upon a secret, but the three men didn't look troubled. Clearly, this was a question they had been anticipating, given the pending investigation on their academy. Still, the tallest of the three, the silent man who had introduced himself as Nyx Hume, gave Irvine a very brief, but piercing glance.

"Most of them are ongoing missions before the investigation began," Jack clarified. "As far as the newest ones go, well... as long as the client doesn't mind and the Garden Council gives clearance..."

"I wasn't accusing anyone," Irvine said, smiling. "Jus' makin' conversation."

Jack smiled back, but it was clear from both men's expressions that neither was buying the other's excuse. Irvine was determined to get to the bottom of this, but a hallway wasn't the best place to conduct an interrogation, nor was he going to get anywhere without solid evidence.

It was, however, an exchange not to be looked over, and Irvine made a mental note to speak to Squall once the three SeeDs were done reporting to him.

* * *

Zell Dincht stood with his back against the bumper of a sleek blue Garden vehicle, facing the north airstation of Esthar City while enjoying a slice of what he had been assured was genuine Esthari junk food.

He wasn't aware of what the recipe entailed, exactly, but he was fairly certain the pizza-like concoction in his hand comprised cabbage, eggs, mushrooms, tuna and some sort of white paste that tasted a little like mayonnaise.

_Disgusting when you think about it, but it actually tastes pretty damn good._

The Ragnarok was running a little late, but that was to be expected. When Squall had asked him to go pick up Quistis and Seifer's team, he had mentioned that the airstation would be swamped with incoming flights from all over the world this morning. It wasn't only Esthari citizens who were eager to hear the Archbishop speak in public; in fact, many Garden students had been dejected to hear that only SeeDs assigned to the upcoming mission would be allowed to attend.

And yet, the rumor mill in Garden was busy with far more than predictions over who would get picked for tomorrow's mission.

The news of Quistis's injury had traveled like wildfire, and by the time it had reached Zell's ears, the story was that Quistis had maneuvered the ship out of a whirlpool, fended off an attack of Dolletian pirates on her own and had frozen the ship's deck to stop it from splitting in two when the pirate ship collided with the _Dollet Star_.

He knew at least ninety percent of the story was fabricated, but the frozen ship part that had in turn led to Quistis's injury was true, and Zell was convinced Seifer Almasy had something to do with getting his friend hurt.

He was about to find out if he was right, as the Ragnarok began to make its descent onto the airstation platform right at that moment. Throngs of people came and went through the pristine glass doors of the airstation, and Zell was down to the fifth slice of his snack by the time he saw Quistis's familiar face.

She was followed by Seifer and two strangers, while two Balamb Garden SeeDs in uniform brought the rear.

Zell gave Quistis an enthusiastic wave and hurried over to meet up with the team of SeeDs. He saw Quistis squint from afar, and then return the wave upon recognition. She was not smiling and looked rather put out; he couldn't blame her. Getting injured after having spent a whole day in Seifer's company was something he wouldn't wish upon his worst enemy.

As soon as he closed in on the six SeeDs, he drew Quistis into a hug. "Hey, Quisty," he said, and pulled back after a brief embrace. "You OK?" he asked, throwing a furtive glance toward Seifer.

"I'm fine, Zell," Quistis said, and flashed him a genuine smile. "All patched up," she added, raising her casting arm to show Zell it had been bandaged up neatly.

"At ease," Zell said casually to the four SeeDs who had stood at attention the moment he approached; Seifer was the only one who hadn't bothered. "You don't look too battered; did the pirates go easy on you?" he asked, grinning.

"The what now?" Quistis asked, blinking.

"Er... let's just say there's a slightly different story going around Garden about what happened to you," he said, patting Quistis on the shoulder when she groaned at this new piece of information.

"Right... I suppose we ought to get going," Quistis said, shouldering her duffel bag. "Oh, I almost forgot... Zell, meet Felix Von Troy and Manu Fortenbras," she said, pointing at each man respectively.

"Hey there, Zell Dincht," said Zell, shaking hands with both men a little hesitantly. He didn't know either of them, but he couldn't bring himself to trust anyone who associated with Seifer daily. At least not right off the bat. "I'll drive you over to Garden, come on," he said, making his way back to the car.

Seifer, Zell noticed, had been conspicuously silent so far. Reformed or not, he usually wasted no chance to mock him, and even without the presence of a good opportunity to do so, he always managed to find something to criticize. Today, however, he seemed to be preoccupied with something else.

No sooner had Zell felt relief that he didn't have Seifer's snark to deal with today, than he heard the familiar drawling voice.

"Good choice," Seifer said, indicating the car. "But I forgot to pack my clown suit."

Zell arched an eyebrow. "What the hell are you talkin' about?"

Quistis seemed to have spotted the problem as well. Grimacing, she turned to Zell and leaned in to whisper in his ear: "Zell, there's seven of us. There's no way we'll fit in this car."

Zell's shoulders tensed up; he hadn't taken the two escort SeeDs into account when picking out a car. He spent about two seconds looking panicked, before realizing that showing more signs of weakness in front of Seifer was going to work against him.

"The back seats are pretty roomy," Zell said, trying his best to look composed. "Just get your luggage in there and we'll work it out," he said, and opened the trunk of the car.

"Work _what_ out?" Seifer sneered. "We won't fit."

"Yes, we will," Zell said determinedly, his ears burning. "Quistis gets shotgun, I drive and-"

"Not- not to be rude," said the SeeD pilot, Tikka Bedlam, timidly. "But... shouldn't, er... shouldn't someone umm... y'know more... er... tall, sit in front?"

"Pilot girl makes a fair point," Seifer said, nodding.

By now, Zell's face resembled a beet in color. "_I'm _the designated driver."

"Zell," Quistis cut in, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. "They're right. We should-"

"Squall is going to have a fit if we let Seifer or his cronies drive the car to Garden, you know that," Zell hissed in Quistis's ear.

"Fine, I'll drive then," Quistis said, holding her hand out for the keys.

"I wouldn't advise that," said Manu Fortenbras. "Putting any strain on your wrist right now is not a good idea, SeeD Trepe."

"_I'll_ drive," Zell said, gritting his teeth. "Someone _taller_ can sit in the passenger's seat-"

"Oh and five of us will squeeze into the back seat?"

"The girls can sit on your laps-"

"I'd rather sit on a Wendigo's lap, thank you very much."

"You're not working with me here..."

"This is ridiculous, two of us could just use the lifters to get to Garden-"

"_No-one _gets to Garden unsupervised-"

Nearly fifteen minutes later, Quistis found herself sitting in the back, sandwiched between the door and Manu Fortenbras. Felix and a young Balamb SeeD whose name she didn't know had squeezed into the back seat as well. Zell had taken the wheel after all, and the passenger's seat was shared by Seifer (the tallest of the seven SeeDs), and the pilot. Quistis didn't think she had ever seen anyone look as utterly uncomfortable as the girl looked sitting on Seifer's lap.

The trip was mercifully short. The moment the car came to a stop before Garden's gates, everyone stepped out as fast as humanly possible, taking in deep gulps of fresh air. It hadn't exactly been the height of hygiene, sitting in such a confined space with three other SeeDs who hadn't had a chance to shower after a stressful day.

No-one thanked Zell for the ride, not even Quistis, who instead picked up her luggage from the trunk and made a beeline for the gate. Her daydreams of a nice, long shower, a warm meal and a good night's sleep on her bed were cut short when she reached her dorm and saw that the door was obstructed by two cadets and something colorful she couldn't make out.

Upon closer inspection, that something turned out to be a mountain of flower bouquets and cards, no doubt wishing her a full recovery. As touching as the concern was, she was in no mood to deal with Trepies just yet, much less Trepies who had concocted a wild misinterpretation of the mission's events.

Turning her heel before the two Trepies spotted her, Quistis decided to pay the infirmary a visit.

* * *

"…Let me make sure I understood correctly," Dr. Kadowaki said, holding Quistis's wrist. "Seven hours ago, your vein was _split_?"

Quistis nodded, literally feeling the disbelief of three pairs of eyes locked on the smooth skin of her wrist. After getting to the infirmary, Kadowaki had contacted Squall who had in turn requested Manu Fortenbras's presence as well.

"And this young man." She indicated Manu, who stood next to Squall and Rinoa. "Healed you?"

"Yes, doctor," Quistis confirmed. "I wasn't conscious to witness it, but he was still working on me when I woke up."

Dr. Kadowaki shifted her attention to Manu for a few moments, looking awe-struck. The young SeeD seemed to be a little uncomfortable with the attention, but smiled politely nonetheless. The doctor's eyes went from his face down to his chest, resting on the silver ornament pinned below his breast pocket.

"My, my…" she said, and finally smiled back. "I distinctly remember the last person I met who wore the very same crest you bear on your chest, Mr. Fortenbras, and she would seem talentless compared to you. I guess they don't give those to just anyone anymore."

Squall stood next to Rinoa, arms crossed, his eyes never leaving Manu for a single second, save to gape at Quistis's quick recovery. "Rank S White Caster?" he said.

"That's right, Commander," Manu said, giving him a curt nod.

"We could use a man like you in the infirmary," Squall said. "Interested?"

_Oh Squall, no… Not in front of Rinoa…_ Quistis thought, discreetly listening in on the conversation as Dr. Kadowaki inspected her wrist further.

But it was too late. Rinoa, having heard Squall's proposal, whipped her head towards his direction, looking a little shocked and hurt. Squall didn't notice.

"I'm afraid my loyalties lie with Galbadia Garden, sir," Manu said. "I appreciate the offer, but I cannot accept it."

"Still, you wouldn't object to working here every now and then during the preliminary investigation, would you?" Squall said, still oblivious to Rinoa's gaze.

"No, of course not. I'd be glad to help if my services are needed," Manu said.

"And while we'd love to have you," Dr. Kadowaki interjected while re-bandaging Quistis's wrist. "Our Commander is forgetting that such a decision is Headmaster Kramer's responsibility."

"I don't see why he would object," Squall said, shrugging. "You told him yourself you will be retiring next year and Rinoa could use all the help she can get."

_Shut up. NOW,_ Quistis thought, cringing. "So, when can I hope to be getting back into action?" Quistis said a little too loudly in an attempt change the subject.

Squall turned to look at Dr. Kadowaki to hear her diagnosis as well, and it was only then that he saw the look in Rinoa's eyes. He looked confused for a split second, but the Sorceress didn't give him any time to work it out; she quickly went to stand by Quistis's side and asked Dr. Kadowaki to let her bandage Quistis's wound herself.

Quistis assumed the girl needed to occupy herself with something to keep from showing how she truly felt. She gave Rinoa a smile, which she only barely reciprocated.

"You're looking at… two weeks off duty, at least," Dr. Kadowaki replied.

Manu nodded. "I agree; that was my estimate as well."

"Off duty?" Quistis asked. "I know I can't cast for that long, but can't I—?"

"You body is still pumped with magic and medicine," Dr. Kadowaki cut her off. "You may not feel it now, but by this time tomorrow, you will have a hard time moving your wrist much. You need to avoid pinching, gripping motions… anything that puts a strain on your muscles. And you work with a whip, so any mission is out of the question."

Quistis opened her mouth to say something, hesitating. Rinoa placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "What about the Esthar mission?" she asked.

"We'll have to find a replacement," Squall said, rubbing one temple. "I'll talk to Irvine as soon as we're done here."

"I suppose I should look on the bright side," Quistis said, rubbing her freshly bandaged wrist ruefully. "I'll get to enjoy the ceremony as a civilian."

"Sorry, you'll have to catch it on TV like everyone else," Squall said, shaking his head.

"Er… Am I not allowed to attend as a civilian?" Quistis asked, arching an eyebrow.

"I'd rather not have more SeeDs in the square than needed," Squall said. "I'm sorry Quistis, but you and I both know that the Archbishop is only doing this ceremony to get on the President's good side."

"It's true," Manu agreed. "I've lived in Esthar most of my life and the Church of Hyne has had little tolerance for military institutions unless there is something to be gained out of a situation."

Quistis was crestfallen. She had been looking forward to this mission, for no reason other than to get the chance to see, and maybe even meet, the Archbishop. She wasn't naïve; she knew there was corruption to be found even in the most hallowed grounds on Gaia, but this man's words touched her and reminded why she was a believer in the first place.

"She can come as my guest."

Both Quistis and Squall turned their heads sharply to stare at Rinoa who had just spoken.

"Guest?" Squall repeated, confused.

"Laguna told us we could both bring guests, remember?" Rinoa said, and there was a strange, slightly vindictive smile on her face.

"Rinoa, I really don't—"

"Quistis has been looking forward to this, and if there's a way she can attend without drawing attention, I don't see what the problem is," Rinoa went on.

"Not draw attention?" Squall said impatiently, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "Rinoa, we'll be standing on the friggin' _platform_!"

"I'm sure Quistis wouldn't mind standing behind us, next to the guards," Rinoa countered. "She could even wear an Esthari guard uniform," she added with a giggle.

Quistis knew she should've been taking this more seriously and in the past had had no patience for Rinoa's half-baked plans. She didn't know whether it was just her desire to attend or if she was trying to convince herself Rinoa had actually come up with something halfway decent, but she liked the idea.

"Or maybe, she could wear _my_ clothes, get a quick dye-job and a haircut and pose as the Commander," Squall said, his eyes shining with anger. "That would be _fun,_ wouldn't it?"

"Oh lighten up, I was only joking," Rinoa said, rolling her eyes.

"I'm glad my responsibilities amuse you so greatly," Squall grumbled.

Quistis saw Rinoa was about to retort, and aside from not wanting to get caught in the middle of this, she was sure both Squall and Rinoa would later on regret having had a fight in front of a newcomer.

"Rinoa, thanks for trying to find a solution," Quistis said, squeezing her friend's hand. "But I think Squall is right; I should stay this one out."

"But—"

"It's alright, really."

Rinoa shrugged and dropped the subject, but looked a little dejected at having missed the chance to win the argument.

Quistis hoped she was wrong, but she had the feeling Squall and Rinoa's quarrels had been getting more and more frequent. Rinoa didn't talk about it much, but her usual cheerfulness had diminished over the last few months, Quistis could tell. It seemed like she wasn't the only one who had noticed, either. She saw Dr. Kadowaki looking pointedly at both the Commander and the Sorceress, but she remained silent.

_I just hope they don't fall apart after everything they've been through together,_ Quistis thought once she left the infirmary, accompanied by Squall and Manu Fortenbras.

* * *

"Are you sure you can't come?" Selphie asked, smoothing the lapels of her uniform. "You know Sir Laguna would love to see you."

Rinoa shook her head, smiling. "This meeting is official business," she said. "I don't really have a place there. But I will see Laguna tomorrow. I'll be on the platform next to him for the ceremony, remember?"

"Still, I wish you'd come," Selphie said, leaning against the wall behind her. "With Quisty out of commission I could use the company."

"Zell, Squall and Irvine will be there," Rinoa reminded her. "Cid and Edea, too."

The large group of SeeDs currently in the lobby by the directory of Garden comprised the teams that were going to be dispatched for the mission in Esthar City tomorrow. The trial run and the meeting with the President was scheduled for this afternoon. Selphie liked to think she got along with just about anyone, but she would have liked to have a friend on her team aside from the boys.

"Yeah, but you're the only one who laughs when I call Dr. Odine a cross-dressing ballerina," Selphie said. "Everyone else thinks it's _highly inappropriate_."

Rinoa laughed. "Well, I guess you'll have to make do."

Selphie grumbled and checked out her reflection on the stream below before turning to look at Rinoa again. "How have you been, by the way?" she asked. "Ever since... y'know."

"Relieved," Rinoa answered, a little too quickly. "Hey, what's with these four over there?"

"Don't change the subject," Selphie said, but she shifted her attention over to where Rinoa was looking as well. "I wasn't done-"

She came to a sudden stop when she saw the four SeeDs Rinoa had been talking about. Balamb Garden had hundreds of cadets and soldiers, but after nearly three years on board, Selphie was pretty certain she was able to recognize pretty much everyone, if not by name, then by face. These four were complete strangers.

"Huh..." she said. "I haven't seen them before, have you?"

"Me neither," Rinoa said. "They don't look like cadets to me... New recruits?"

"Ooooh, you know what? I think they're Seifer's men," Selphie said. "There, I recognize the short one. I saw his picture in Irvy's research files; he was studying their profiles. Seifer's with them, too, see?"

The two girls continued to steal glances at the newcomers, and they weren't the only ones. It seemed like every head in the lobby had turned their way at least once, and most of the chatter they could overhear was speculation over who the strangers were.

"Yeah, that's them," Rinoa agreed. "See the fifth one who just came in?" she said, pointing him out to Selphie. "That's their healer. And- What's Quistis doing with him?"

Selphie, now openly staring, frowned. Quistis was talking to the fourth man rather genially, she noticed. She shook hands with two of the others and then turned to talk to the tallest of the bunch. "I 'unno... He's the one who healed her, yeah? Maybe- Whoa."

"Whoa what?"

"Silver fox, ten o' clock," Selphie said, gaping.

Rinoa groaned. "Guh, I never understood how-"

Selphie grabbed Rinoa's arm and held it out like the hand of a clock. "Twelve, eleven, _ten,_" she said, coming to a stop when Rinoa's arm was pointing straight at a man with silver hair. "Yowza."

"Oh," Rinoa said, understanding what Selphie had meant by ten o' clock. And then she saw the man she had been talking about. "Oooooh. Oh my."

"No kiddin'. Mmmmm, come to _mama_..."

"Selphie!" Rinoa said, giggling and nudging her friend with her elbow.

"Whaaaat? It's not like I'm- Argh, cool it, Quisty's coming," Selphie said, and turned sharply to face Rinoa, pretending to be telling her something of great importance.

Quistis approached her two friends, wearing an expression of mixed amusement and exasperation. "It's a miracle the man doesn't have a hole burned on his face, they way you two were staring," she said.

Selphie motioned her to come closer. "Who _is_ that?" she hissed when Quistis stepped forward.

"I assume you're talking about the one with the silver hair?" she asked, grinning.

"_Duh_," Selphie said. "Who is he and how the heck do you know him?"

"I met two of them on the way back from Deling," Quistis explained. "The one with the dark ponytail is Manu, their healer. And the silver-haired man is called Felix. I just came in to hand Seifer some paperwork and he introduced me to the other three," she said, frowning a little in confusion. "Not sure why."

"Maybe because the one in the glasses kept yanking his sleeve and pointing at you. Totally checked out your ass on the way here, by the way," Selphie said.

"My-?"

"But never mind that. When are you going to introduce us to this _Feeeelix_ specimen?" Selphie said, grinning from ear to ear.

"Us?" Quistis asked, looking at Rinoa. "Are you in on this, too?"

"Iiiiii... think I'll let Selphie do all the talking. She's bound to annoy you enough to actually do it, no questions asked," Rinoa said, chuckling.

"Don't I know it," Quistis said, letting out a sigh.

The chatter around them soon died down, only to turn into hurried whispers of 'The Commander!' as everyone hurried to step into formation and greet Squall.

Rinoa looked over her shoulder, her face suddenly falling. "Ah, Squall's here," she said. "I'd better go. Coming, Quistis?"

"Uh, sure, I just-"

"C'mon," said the Sorceresses and made her way down the lobby, dragging Quistis in tow.

"Wait—" Selphie began, but the two girls were already gone.

She couldn't help but notice Rinoa had been a little too eager to leave. The fact that she refused to look Squall's way when they crossed paths didn't escape her, either.

_What the heck? _She wondered, but before she had time to think about what it all meant, Squall approached the lobby and all SeeDs gathered there assembled in line before him.

"At ease," said Squall.

Now Selphie knew he wasn't exactly the most cheerful guy in the world, but she had known him long enough to be able to tell from his expression that he was in a particularly testy mood today.

"I see here that SeeD Kinneas has already divided you into groups of five," Squall began. "Each team has been assigned a standard-issue SeeD vehicle. Teams C through E are to drive directly to Liberty Square. Teams A and B will join you after the meeting with the President is over. At precisely 1500 hours SeeD Kinneas will be there to answer any and all questions. Today is only a trial run, but as Balamb Garden's representatives in Esthar, you are all expected to behave accordingly. That is all. Proceed to the parking lot."

Squall gave a sharp nod at the round of salutes directed his way and as the five teams began to move towards the parking lot, he approached the ones assigned to team B. Seifer and four of his men came to a stop and stood at attention. Squall noticed it took Seifer a little longer than the rest to follow suit.

"Team B, go on ahead," Squall said and his eyes fell upon Seifer. "Your leader will be joining me for the journey to the Palace."

The four men shared a questioning look, but went on ahead after Seifer wordlessly motioned them to get moving. He was about to relax his position when Squall spoke.

"I didn't say 'At ease.' As you were," he said, fixing the blond man with the kind of eyes he reserved for SeeDs who had done something that merited a solid month of scrubbing the restrooms with a toothbrush as a punishment.

Seifer sighed and stood up at attention again. "Yes, _Commander_?" he drawled.

"We are going to have a little chat," Squall said, crossing his arms behind his back.

"What about?"

"Sir."

Seifer grit his teeth. "What about... _sir_?"

"Your men came over to my office this morning," Squall said, frowning. "They introduced themselves."

"Means their mommies taught them good manners; why the frown?" Seifer asked wearily. "Sir?" he added, even more wearily.

"They used their _real_ names."

Seifer's lips twitched upward. There was a moment of silence, during which he made a visible effort not to laugh. "Oh really?" he finally said.

"Yes, really," Squall said. "Mind explaining to me what the whole code name deal was about?"

"I simply wanted to see if you would take my word that I honestly didn't know their names, or if you would try to do a background check on them, sir," Seifer replied, no longer smirking but looking amused all the same.

"Why?"

Seifer shrugged. "To see if you trusted me at all."

"You thought there was the slightest chance I would trust you again with anything even remotely significant?" Squall asked in disbelief.

"Actually… yes—or no, I didn't think so, but I hoped as much."

Squall narrowed his eyes at Seifer, trying to guess what the blond was getting at. He wasn't, not for one second, buying this excuse, and personal experience had taught him that Seifer liked to build up most of his insults. "Again, why?" he asked.

"Because it would be proof that getting shagged on a regular basis loosens people up a bit, but I guess it's a hoax after all. _Sir_."

_But of course_, Squall thought, his expression darkening. "We're not seventeen anymore. We're not equals. You disrespect me, you face the consequences," he said, and was suddenly immensely glad he had the power to do something when Seifer was being his usual self instead of merely talking back.

"Empty threats. You wouldn't—"

"Try me," Squall said. "Just because Cid was opposed to using the brig doesn't mean I am."

Seifer, clearly impressed by the comeback, turned to look at Squall, a grin dancing on his lips. "Well, look at you... I leave for two years and come to find you've gone hardcore on me. I'm shocked."

"You think I'm joking?" Squall said, his voice dropping an octave as he stepped closer to Seifer.

"No, sir," Seifer said, and it was the first time his voice held no inflection whatsoever when he said that last word. "I'm not joking either. You finally grew a pair; I like it."

Squall was at a complete loss as to how to answer to something like that. On one hand, Seifer had the audacity to speak to him as if they were still equals in rank. On the other, it was one of the few times he had ever given him a genuine compliment. Or, at least, what _he_ perceived as a compliment.

"Scrub duty at the engine room, starting from the 30th and ending whenever I damn please. Now get going," he said.

Seifer rolled his eyes and let out a sigh, but he was grinning still. "Aren't I supposed to ride with you, sir?"

"Am _I_ supposed to carry you on my shoulders?" Squall quipped. "My car is in the parking lot. Move it."

"Yes, _sir_," Seifer said, and with one final salute, did as he was told.

Squall watched him walk away, and was surprised to feel the familiar tingle in his stomach whenever he and Seifer sparred, verbally or otherwise.

_Am I smiling…? For Hyne's sake, stop it. Stop grinning,_ he chastised himself, and followed suit.

* * *

Quistis stared outside the window of Squall's office wistfully. It was too lovely a day to spend indoors.

She would have given anything for a chance to visit Esthar today, like the cadets were allowed to do, but there was work to be done. If she was completely honest with herself, even more than taking a walk around Esthar, she yearned to be at the Presidential Palace, discussing tactics with the team assigned to protect the Archbishop.

She gave her bandaged wrist a deplorable glance at that thought. Dr. Kadowaki had been right; by the time she'd woken up from a brief nap, the medication and magic had worn off, and there was a dull ache emanating from the center of her wound. The pain had grown sharper when she started getting dressed. It had taken nearly an hour to get ready since she had to be careful not to put too much strain on her wrist.

To add insult to injury, she hadn't been allowed to spend the day in front of the TV with a truckload of comfort food for company, but had instead been asked to man the desk in the wake of Squall's absence. Nearly all SeeDs who had the authority to stand in for the Commander when he was away were on the mission, and Xu was scheduled to supervise the restocking of Garden supplies.

On the bright side, it had been a very quiet afternoon. All calls went directly to Shizuka, and there had been no important executive decisions to be taken so far.

No sooner had she formed that thought, than she heard the phone ring.

Quistis picked up the receiver with her uninjured hand. "Hello?"

_"Quistis, I just received a call from the post office,"_ came Shizuka's voice. _"Apparently, there's some sort of issue with one of the packages they just received."_

"Put them through," Quistis said, sitting up. "This is SeeD Trepe speaking," she said, once the line connected.

_"SeeD Trepe,"_ said the SeeD on the other end of the line. _"I'm sorry to bother you, ma'am, but we just received a package via train, and... well... it's an animal."_

"An animal?" Quistis asked, frowning. "As in a beast delivery for the Training Center?"

_"Uhh, no. As in a pet. A cat to be exact."_

"A cat? What on earth is a ca-" Quistis began, but she stopped mid-sentence when she realized which the cat in question was. "White, long fur? Blue eyes? Has a collar on?"

_"Sounds about right, ma'am."_

"What does the collar say?"

_"Hold on a minute... uhh... It says 'Figaro'."_

Quistis swore through her teeth. She had to appreciate the irony of the situation; she had allowed Seifer to bring his pet along thinking that Squall would've been the one to deal with telling him that pets were prohibited within Garden. Since Squall was absent, however, she had to take care of the problem herself.

She had half a mind to pass the responsibility over to the rightful person, but the thought of leaving that poor animal in a cage for another full day seemed a little cruel. Besides, she had promised Edea that she would make an honest effort to bridge the gap between her peers and Seifer.

_Not that the jackass deserves it, _Quistis thought, remembering the way he had insulted her during their brief stay in Dollet. Still, no matter how futile her attempts, a promise to Edea meant far too much to Quistis to shirk away from a chance to get on Seifer's good graces.

"I'll be right down," she said, sighing. "Don't send it back," she warned, before hanging up.

Muttering a hurried excuse to Shizuka, Quistis hurried down to the B-level. Once the office of Garden Master NORG, it was now acting as a storage space and temporary home of the packages Garden received before they passed inspection and were shipped upstairs to the lobby.

_Since they called me,_ Quistis thought as she willed the elevator to go faster. _It means that Xu hasn't been notified. Yet._ There was no doubt Xu would be less than inclined to approve of _any_ package Seifer received, much less a pet.

She wasn't exactly thrilled about Seifer's insolence herself, but that was no reason to leave a defenseless, scared animal all alone for yet another train ride until this mess was sorted out.

She burst forth the moment the elevator doors slid open and zig-zagged between the cadets and SeeDs sorting through boxes of mail and crates of supplies until she reached a door that led to a small office. The label outside read _Inspection_.

Quistis pushed the door open and scanned the cramped room for the small crate containing Seifer's cat.

"SeeD Trepe," said a male voice behind a mountain of mail; a cadet's head was barely visible behind it. He gave her a salute and beckoned her over.

The boy lifted up the cat crate from the floor and set it upon the desk. Figaro let out a faint meow.

"This is the ca-"

"Yes, I can see that," Quistis cut him off. "Where do I sign?"

The cadet looked flabbergasted; this was obviously not the response he had been expecting. "Er... What do you mean?"

"I'm approving the package," Quistis replied. "SeeD Chang is busy elsewhere, it seems, and I'm the only SeeD on the premises with the authority to approve this, correct?"

"Uhh, correct, but-"

"It's a _cat_, cadet," Quistis said, crossing her arms in front of her chest. She had no desire to play the rank card, but Xu could return any moment now. "It meows, eats and occasionally scratches surfaces. Hardly a Level-5 Hazard."

"But the Commander does not allow- Well... except for Sorceress Rinoa's familiar, but-"

Quistis had the distinct feeling that the cadet wasn't going to keep this incident to himself, and allowing even more 'select' members of Squall's social circle to own pets would be enough cause for uproar within Garden. The day Angelo had stepped foot outside Rinoa's room, Squall had been flooded with letters from disgruntled SeeDs who had rightly asked for the same privileges Rinoa was enjoying. In the end, Irvine had come up with the idea of reintroducing Angelo as Rinoa's 'familiar', a term which identified an animal as a Sorceress's companion and implied that it possessed magical qualities of its own.

While it was true that Angelo was smart enough to assist Rinoa in battle, the only special quality she possessed that Quistis knew of, was the incredible ability to pick the worst possible pair of shoes to chew upon.

_A salary's worth of the finest Trabian leather, _Quistis mused, remembering a pair of very elegant boots, one of the very few vanity items she had owned. After a fateful visit from Rinoa and her dog, she had found them shoved at the very back of her wardrobe, torn apart and covered in Angelo's drool.

"Not that this is any of your concern, but the cat is a gift," she invented wildly.

"A gift?" the cadet inquired, looking a little less apprehensive.

"A gift," Quistis repeated. "President Loire is very fond of cats."

"Oh, I see," the cadet said. "So the cat won't be staying here for long?"

"Correct. Now can I sign for it, or should I leave the Commander's desk unmanned for much longer?" Quistis asked.

Looking a little sheepish, but satisfied nonetheless, the cadet drew up a form and showed Quistis where to sign for the approval of the package. He proceeded to brand the paper with a stamp that read _Approved by the B-Garden Inspection Office_, gave Quistis a copy of the form and handed her the crate.

Quistis picked it up with her uninjured hand and made her way back to the elevator in a brisk pace to avoid a chance meeting with Xu. She was about to press the elevator call button, when it occurred to her that she could hardly return to the office with a cat in tow, nor did she want to attract unwarranted attention by parading the cat crate all over Garden until she reached her dorm.

She cast a look over her shoulder, checking to see whether anyone was watching her. The coast was clear; everyone else on the B-Level was otherwise occupied. She pressed the call button. The moment the doors opened, she reached out and pulled an empty, discarded box into the elevator with her. The doors closed behind her, and she breathed a sigh of relief; unless the cadet spilled, she was safe.

For the few seconds it took to reach the first floor, Quistis briefly questioned her motives in going through all this trouble to get Seifer's cat out of the storage room before anyone else caught wind of its arrival. It was one thing to try and get to know Seifer a little better for Edea's sake, and completely another to go out of her way to give him privileges he didn't deserve more than any other SeeD did.

She bent down low enough to look through the front grate of the cat carrier. Figaro appeared to be a little tense still, but he was quiet. "Lucky for your master you're so cute," she told the cat, smiling.

Quickly, Quistis pressed the 'Stop' button on the elevator before it reached the first floor, and set the cat carrier down.

"Time to hide," she said and knelt down in front of the crate. "This won't hurt a bit," she said reassuringly, as her hand slowly became surrounded by a warm, purple glow. Her ability to cast a spell with her left hand –since her right one was injured- was mediocre at best, but right now this suited her just fine; she didn't want to hit the cat with a particularly strong spell, just keep it quiet long enough to make her way to her dorm.

The glow intensified and concentrated on the palm of her hand, until it formed a hazy, swirling sphere. She pointed her palm at the cat and said "Sleep," softly.

Figaro's head drooped and his body fell on the bottom of the carrier with a soft thud. He was blissfully asleep.

Not wasting more time since she feared that people could be calling the elevator, she slipped the cat carrier inside the empty cardboard box she had taken from the B-Level. She lifted it up as best she could with her one good arm and pressed the 'Stop' button once more. The elevator gave a small creak and resumed its trip up to the first floor.

A pair of students were waiting outside when she stepped out. If they had suspected the elevator had broken down or had been stopped, they showed no signs of it, and merely gave Quistis a salute. She nodded back and stepped outside, feeling a little rebellious but at the same time a little silly as well.

* * *

"Oh come oooooooooooooooon," Zell said, groaning and pressing on the car's horn for the umpteenth time.

The traffic in the city of Esthar today was like something out of a nightmare. For more than half an hour now, the SeeD vehicle carrying Zell, Irvine, Selphie and a man from Seifer's team called Nyx Hume had not moved a single inch.

Zell wiped his forehead angrily, wondering what on earth had possessed Esthari architects to create a city made of glass. It was no doubt impressive, but during a sunny day like the one today, it made Zell feel like he was on the receiving end of a magnifying glass filtering the sun's rays. "Seriously, why aren't we moving?" he said, exasperated.

"I dunno," Irvine said, looking outside the window. "I can't make out what they're sayin', but I think there's some sort of protest going on a few yards ahead. Maybe they're blockin' the street."

"I don't _care_ what they're protesting about," Zell seethed. "I just wish they'd get moving so we can GO SEE THE PRESIDENT!" he yelled, sticking his head outside the window as well.

"YEAH, AND I HAVE A DATE WITH A CHIMERA. SHUT THE HELL UP, JACKASS."

"WHO SAID THAT?" Zell yelled back. With everyone shouting and honking their car horns, it was impossible to make out who had spoken up. "WHO _SAID_ THAT?"

"URUSE, KONO BAKA!"

"YES, YOU SHUT, YOU SHUT!"

"Quick, what's Esthari for moron?" Zell asked, swiveling around to ask Irvine and Selphie, but found no-one in the car save for Seifer's teammate. "What the-? Where did everyone go?"

Nyx wasn't looking at him. He was staring out the window at the departing forms of Irvine and Selphie, who soon go lost among the crowd. "They left on foot."

"Great, this is juuuuust great," Zell said, sinking into his seat. "You're not gonna bail on me, too, are you?" he asked, staring at the man from the rearview mirror.

Nyx shook his head.

Zell rested his cheek on his balled up fist, staring dejectedly at the long, unmoving chain of cars. The honking, the yelling and the far off noise from the protesters never died down. To make matters worse, he was stuck in the car with someone who hadn't uttered a single word up until now. At first Zell had figured he was simply shy and didn't really know what to say among strangers, but the fact that he kept answering casual questions with little more than nods and shrugs made him realize the man wasn't exactly talkative.

"Does your friend always talk this much?" Nyx asked all of a sudden.

"Hmmm?" Zell said, turning around. "Who, Selphie?"

Nyx nodded.

Zell had to chuckle at that; sticking someone like this Nyx fellow with someone like Selphie in the same small space for half an hour was a comedy sketch waiting to happen. That or a brutal murder. "Why, what was she talking to you about?" he asked.

"First she asked what my name was," Nyx said, completing the longest sentence Zell had heard him say so far. His expression was a combination of horror and complete disbelief. "Then she asked about Galbadia Garden. Then she asked me where I grew up, and about my friends, and my parents, and my specialty, and my hobbies, and my favorite color, my favorite food, if I have any pets, if I like Esthar, if I've ever been here before, whether I know the President or not and how I was going to like him, and how he was a journalist, and that she knew a lot about him but couldn't tell me how because it was complicated and then she started talking about a festival and a piano and her own friends and her boyfriend and someone called 'Matron' and..."

* * *

"Wait, wait, wait!" Selphie yelled into her cell phone. "What was that about OdiCorp labs?"

Irvine's idea to continue on foot had momentarily been a good one, but right now, Selphie wished she was back in that car with Zell and the silent guy from Galbadia. It seemed that traffic had been nothing but the tip of the iceberg in the great, bit trainwreck that was Esthar City today.

The city's lifters were out of order and cars had come to a complete stop due to the protesters marching towards the Presidential Palace. The only way to get anywhere within the city was to walk there, and the experience was making Selphie remember why she hated big cities.

Everyone seemed to be completely, one hundred percent out of their minds. She had never before seen so many beggars, angry businessmen, hysterical children and insane homeless people stacked up in the same street. She could barely hear herself, let alone Quistis who was trying to give her directions to the Palace.

_"If you're past Dr. Odine's laboratory, then you've gone too far. Go back to that intersection. The palace is due north."_

Selphie plucked the phone away from her ear and looked up to Irvine. "Quisty says we've gone too far. We need to go back to the previous intersection and take the north road to the Palace."

Irvine shook his head. "We couldn't, remember? It was blocked."

_Oh, right... the marching protesters,_Selphie recalled, and pressed the phone up against her ear again. "There's this protest going on today, Quisty. We can't go that way."

_"All right, then keep going straight ahead. Have you reached the north airstation yet?"_

"Yeah, we just got there."

"REPENT, AND YOU SHALL EARN THE GODS' GRACE AS THE WORLD TEETERS ON THE BRINK OF DESTRUCTION!"

_"Go past the airstation, ignore the next intersection and just stay on that road. It makes a wide turn and eventually leads to the Palace."_

Selphie stood up on tiptoes to try and make out the turn Quistis had spoken of in the distance. "Okay, got it," she said, once she had spotted it. "Thanks, Quisty!"

"REPEEEEENT! REPENT BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE! THE COMING OF THE NEW YEAR SHALL HERALD-"

_"No problem. What's all this ruckus anyway? Who's shouting?"_

Selphie groaned. "It's just _madness_ out here today. There's horrible traffic, there's the march going on and there's some sort of crazy doomsayer outside the airstation yelling stuff about the apocalypse or something. HEY, KEEP IT DOWN! TRYIN' TO TALK HERE!"

"THE EAGLE WILL FAAAALL! A WIND OF CHANGE WILL BLOW THROUGH GAIA-"

_"Ugh, are you sure you got it? I need to go and this madman sounds like he's close enough to be yelling about eagles right into my ear."_

"Sorry, he was standing in the middle of the street and we had to walk right past him," Selphie said, motioning Irvine to follow her. "And yeah, you can hang up. Thanks for your help! Bye!"she said, and slipped the phone back in her pocket. "Come on, it's this way."

Irvine checked his watch. "_Fuck_. Seven minutes to two. I can't be late for my first solo operation."

"Well c'mon then, we'll make a run for it," Selphie said, and grabbed his hand. "We can't be too far."

The two broke into a sprint, and like Quistis had said, once they passed the wide turn after the airstation, the Esthar Presidential Palace came into view. However, their troubles were far from over. There was a mob right outside the gates, and the only thing holding them from bursting in and tearing the whole place apart was a squadron of police men, Selphie saw.

She had no idea how on earth they would be able to get through, and she had a feeling showing their SeeD IDs wasn't going to help much with a hundred people screaming and pushing behind them. As soon as they approached and managed to squeeze through the crowd to get to the front of the line, a pair of arms shot out from behind the police men and dragged them in.

The best way to describe the sensation of being pulled through a bunch of sweaty, angry people, Selphie decided, was a combination of _Yeuch _and _Ouch_. _Yeouch?_

"What took you so long?" Squall, the one who had pulled them in, hissed as they rearranged their uniforms. "And where are Zell and Nyx?"

"Can't you see what's going on out there?" Selphie said, panting. "We had to leave the car and come on foot. Zell stayed in with Nyx."

Squall cursed through his teeth.

"What was he supposed to do, abandon the car in the middle of the street?" Irvine said, clutching his side and breathing hard.

"Get in," Squall growled, and marched on ahead through the glass doors that lead into the Palace.

Inside, the situation looked no different. The SeeDs who had made it to the Palace in time were all gathered around the lobby. Palace guards and policemen were scattered among them, all in a state of anxiety over whether the gates would hold.

Squall sent Selphie and Irvine over to the Chief of Esthar City's police standing at the far end of the lobby, hoping they would prove to be useful and offer some information about blocked streets and the situation outside in general.

Weary and agitated, he pressed his back against the wall and cursed the day he had ever agreed to take on this mission.

"Are we going to have to deal with this tomorrow on top of everything else?"

Squall turned to face Seifer, who had just spoken. "We're not the police. Mr. Hoshi's men will take care of the madness. Our only concern is the Archbishop and the President."

Seifer scoffed. "_Only_. Where is he, anyway? The President."

"Upstairs, making some calls," Squall replied, running a hand through his hair. "He should be here any minute. Hopefully."

"Is it true he's your dad?" Seifer asked, looking at Squall questioningly.

Squall returned the look, frowning. "Who told you that?"

"You've lived in Garden just a couple of years longer than I have. Don't tell me you've never noticed people over there gossip?"

"I have," Squall replied darkly. "Doesn't mean I welcome the questions."

"I was only curious, don't get your knickers in a bunch-"

"Well perhaps your curiosity-"

Squall's sentence was cut short when he felt a strong arm land on his shoulder and grip it tightly. A thick curtain of dark brown hair came into view, along with the ever-grinning face of Laguna Loire.

"Hey, sorry for all the doom and gloom. Apparently I'm not too popular these days," he said, giving Squall what he clearly thought was a very winning smile.

Squall jerked away from the sudden touch. He had been expecting some sort of announcement for Laguna's arrival, but it didn't surprise him that he had managed to slip by unnoticed within the small crowd gathered in the lobby.

"Yes, we can see that," Squall muttered, straightening up and giving Laguna a curt salute.

"Always with the formalities," Laguna said, chuckling. He then turned to Seifer, fixing him with a curious gaze. "Are you a new one? I thought I'd met all of Squall's friends, but it's nice to know he's made-"

"We're _not_ friends," Squall cut in. "Surely you've heard of Seifer Almasy?"

"Ooohhh, right," Laguna said, upon recognizing the name. His genial demeanor soon vanished, only to be replaced by an awkward grin. "The blond kid who ran the Pandora and stuff. I'm, uhhhh... pleased to meet you, I guess? Heck, if you're with Squall now I suppose you're okay?"

Squall had to try very hard not to laugh out loud. Under any other circumstances, he would have been dreading the sort of comeback Seifer was bound to make in such a situation, but seeing Laguna get brought down a notch or two promised to be entertaining at the very least.

Unfortunately, Seifer seemed to have found this moment of all moments an appropriate time to feel shame for what was probably the first time in his life. The tall blond, usually so quick-witted and having a retort ready for just about anyone, had found himself at a loss for words.

"Uhhhh... I er..." he stammered, and Squall was shocked to see that he was breaking a sweat.

Laguna roared with laughter. "Hey, I didn't mean to put you on the spot, relax!" he said, clapping Seifer on the back. "If you're here with everyone else, then we're allies," he said with an air of finality, clearly trusting Seifer for the fact alone that he associated with Squall. "Well, come on then, we'd better get upstairs before the mob smashes through the entrance, haha."

Squall watched as his father welcomed everyone and invited them up to his office for the meeting, and then turned to stare at Seifer. "What's wrong with _you_?" he asked, arching an eyebrow.

Seifer seemed to regain some of his color, but he was still frozen on the spot. "That... that's your father? The P-President?" he mumbled, staring into the distance with a vacant look in his eyes.

"Yes... why?"

"Oh, nothing, I just..." Seifer began, hesitating. "He uhh... You wouldn't happen to know if he's ever... been in a movie, would you?"

Squall's eyes snapped wide. "How did-?"

"Never mind," Seifer interrupted, snapping out of it. "Let's go."

* * *

Seifer made his way back to his dorm in a daze. The day had gone by so fast that he hadn't had time to realize just how tired he was. It was hard to believe that just a couple of days ago he had been in Jonah's apartment in Deling, lounging in front of the TV, his biggest concern being what to order for dinner.

In what could only be described as a surreal series on events, he had taken part in the destruction of a ferry, had spent more than a full day in Quistis Trepe's company without strangling her, he had squeezed himself into a tiny SeeD vehicle with six other people, he had fought his way through a mob in Esthar, and the crowning moment?

He had met the star of his favorite childhood movie face-to-face, and he just so happened to be his rival's father and the President of Esthar.

_I swear I'm never getting high again, _he mused, shaking his head in disbelief. _Must be residual hallucinations. If I'm not careful, soon I'll start hearing voic-_

"Seifer!"

"GAH!" he yelped, jumping away from the voice so fast he crashed against the opposite wall with a resounding thud. Disoriented, panicky and with a heart racing like a chocobo on crack, he turned his head sharply to the side and saw Quistis Trepe's head peeking through the small opening of her door. "_WHAT._"

"Could you come in for a second?" she said. "I need to give you something."

Seifer, still panting and clutching his heart like a lifeline, stared at Quistis with wide, saucer-like eyes as if she had gone insane.

"You usually greet people like that, Trepe?" he growled. "Give 'em a nice coronary in the process?"

Quistis rolled her eyes in exasperation. "I just heard you were back and was keeping an eye out for when you'd be passing through. Will you come in for a minute?"

"What for?" Seifer asked, narrowing his eyes in suspicion.

"I can't tell you out here."

"Why the hell not?"

"Oh for Hyne's sake, I don't bite," Quistis said, her voice now a shrill whisper. "Come in!"

"Really? 'Cause I always thought you ripped men's heads off after you were done mating," Seifer muttered, and reluctantly followed her inside.

He was completely puzzled as to what it was Quistis wanted to show him, but he was starting to feel it had something to do with her little speech over in Dollet about wanting to get to know him. He had no idea what had possessed her to go down that road, but he was pretty sure the outcome of this experiment wasn't going to be pleasant.

The moment he stepped inside, he realized he had never seen the inside of her dorm. He wasn't surprised to see he had been pretty much spot on when imagining what it would look like. She was neat, although not freakishly so, and every single corner of the room that wasn't occupied by furniture and weapons was covered in books. In fact, the books were the only items in the dorm that looked a little worn out, contrary to everything else that had been kept in tiptop shape, as if she spent her waking hours polishing and taking care of every single surface she could get her hands upon. _Which, come to think about it, wouldn't surprise me at all, _he thought.

Quistis didn't bother with any pleasantries, such as asking him to take a seat, and instead made a beeline for the armchair in her room.

Seifer asked no questions, confident that whatever it was she wanted to show him she was about to, and instead shifted his attention to the bulging bookcase next to him.

"Aren't we hooked on phonics?" he drawled, glancing at the book titles. He recognized only a handful, some of the classics, which he was relieved to say he had never so much as tried to leaf through; the titles alone were enough to bore him to tears.

"Yes, well, that's not what I called you in for," Quistis said. "Something came in the mail for you today."

"And you took it upon yourself to deliver it personally?" Seifer asked, crossing his arms and leaning against the bookcase.

"As a matter of fact, I did," Quistis said and walked over to him, holding up a small crate.

Seifer looked through the grate at the front and nearly did a double-take at what he saw inside. "Figaro? You... you got my cat?"

"He arrived this morning," Quistis explained, handing him the crate containing the sleeping animal. "Animals are prohibited within Garden like I told you, and before you ask, Rinoa's dog is a special case."

"Is that right?"

"Yes. They were going to send him back, so I suggest you keep him in your room at all times. And please be discreet about it," she said.

Seifer kept his eyes on the cat, for a second marveling at how peacefully he seemed to be sleeping. "I guess you pulled some strings to make this happen?" he asked.

"You could say that."

Nodding in understanding, he lifted the handle of the cat carrier and set it down on the floor. "So... what do you want?"

Quistis arched a fine, blond eyebrow at him. "What do you mean?"

"In return. You didn't do this out of the kindness of your heart," he said matter-of-factly.

"Actually... I did. As much as I'd like to mess with you, the poor animal has been in a cage for nearly two days. It shouldn't have to suffer through another long trip to Deling."

"So this was completely, one hundred percent altruistic? No strings attached?" he asked in disbelief.

"Well..." Quistis trailed off, placing her hands against her hips. "Provided that you don't make my life difficult, I won't have to mention this to anyone."

Seifer chuckled. "And here I thought you were above petty little threats. Using an animal as blackmail material? For shame..."

"Yes, I'm just full of surprises," Quistis quipped, grinning.

"I'll say..." Seifer said, giving her a long, calculating look.

He suddenly became very aware of the fact that he was inside the room of someone he'd known all his life, yet knew so little about. It felt like he was supposed to say something along the lines of idle chit-chat, but one, he was far too tired, two, he couldn't think of anything to say, and three, he didn't really feel like staying. "Well then..." he said. "While I'd love to stay for the long, awkward silences and the witty repartee, I have to get going."

Quistis chuckled softly, looking just as relieved as he was that he was leaving. He was willing to admit that she was far more polite than he'd ever dream or want to be, but even she had found nothing of essence to say despite her claims in Dollet.

Seifer picked up the cat carrier and began to walk towards the door, when she spoke up.

"How did the meeting go? Everything set for tomorrow?"

_Ugh, are you kidding, with this? I thought we were on the same hynedamned page. _"You didn't see for yourself?" he asked, turning around to face her.

"I wasn't at the square, no."

"Isn't your whole merry band of adventurers going to be deployed there tomorrow?" he asked, frowning.

Quistis held up her bandaged wrist. "Not this adventurer."

"Oh, right. The hand," Seifer said, feeling a sudden pang of guilt at the sight of it, though not really sure why. "Meeting went well, I guess. Looks like an easy enough mission."

"Right."

"Well... Bye," he said. _Please just let me leave._

"Bye."

_Oh thank Hyne._

When the door slipped shut behind him, Seifer let out a sigh of relief. What _was_ it with women and the need to have everything out in the open all the time? He was pretty damn sure that if he hadn't bombed Trabia Garden and hadn't offered Rinoa to Adel, they would have tried to do the same thing as well.

Granted, he wouldn't mind spending the following months without the dirty looks and the open hostility, but right now, he'd take those over the gut-wrenching awkwardness he felt when in the same room with Quistis Trepe.

_I can't believe I'm saying this, but it would be better if everyone acted like Squall does around me_, he thought.

There was something comforting about the fact that their relationship hadn't changed all that much even after the war. The only difference was that Squall now actually had the power to send him off to the brig for mouthing off. In Trepe's case, the change threw him off balance. He didn't know how to be her friend. Hell, he didn't even know if he _wanted_ to be her friend, and the fact that she insisted upon it even when she, too, felt as iffy about it as he did was mind-boggling.

And yet, he couldn't stop feeling like crap over the fact that she had been injured. It wasn't sympathy, it wasn't pity. Just guilt about something he'd had no control over. These uncomfortable, confusing thoughts followed him all the way to his room, where he stumbled inside through the darkness before managing to free a hand to throw the light switch on.

Moving in a zombie-like state from exhaustion, he placed Figaro's carrier on the floor and pulled the grate open before unceremoniously falling on the bed.

He was so tired he should have fallen asleep before his body hit the mattress, and yet he didn't for many minutes to come.

Quistis's injury was still bothering him.

He groaned into the pillow, blindly searching for the cell phone in his pocket. He lifted his head up just enough to look at the screen as he dialed a number and waited, phone jammed between his ear and shoulder.

_"Yes, Seifer, what is it?"_

"I need a favor," Seifer said, yawning.

_"Is everything all right?"_

"Everything's fine," he replied. "I just left the Presidential Palace. Mission's tomorrow."

_"So I hear. Did everyone make it to Esthar in one piece?"_

Seifer grimaced. "You heard the news?"

_"I did. I assume you were the one responsible for destroying a civilian chip only minutes before it docked?"_

"How do you figure _that_?" Seifer asked, rolling over to his back and kicking his boots off his feet.

_"Certainly sounds like the kind of thing you'd be capable of."_

"This is neither the time nor the place to discuss this," Seifer said. "I'll be there in less than a week and we can talk about whatever the hell you want. Now-"

_"Yes, yes, the favor. Let's hear it, then."_

"I'd like to visit OdiCorp before we depart," Seifer said. "Can you arrange it?"

_"OdiCorp is open to the public; what do you need me f-?"_

"I want to talk to Mercer," Seifer interrupted. "He's a busy man, but he'll make time if you ask."

_"...Why do you want to see Mercer?"_

"Can you arrange it or not?"

_"…...I can. But you and I have a _lot_ to talk about once you return."_

"Sure, whatever. Just make sure it's within the next two days; I don't think we'll be staying here much longer."

_"Will do. I'll let you know after I've spoken to Mercer."_

"Thanks."

_"...I take it this is not a personal issue? They haven't been malfunctioning, have they?" _

"See you in a week, Jonah."

* * *

Irvine blinked at the screen of the computer, his eyes bloodshot. It had been an exhausting day, and he was still not done. Organizing an entire operation, even one as small-scale as this one, was nothing like he'd ever imagined. He was responsible for everything, from the formation on the square down to the tiniest bureaucratic detail.

Zell nudged him with his foot. "Don't fall asleep on me now, man," he said. "C'mon, we're nearly done. What's left?"

Irvine rubbed his eyes and let out a yawn. He was hungry, sleepy, and his back ached from having spent hours sitting on the uncomfortable wooden chairs in the student computer lab. Zell had come for moral support and coffee, but had ended up helping out since it didn't look like Irvine was going to pull this off on his own at this hour of the night.

"The call signs," Irvine replied. "I had everyone register a call sign for this operation and I need to enter them into the database for the initial report."

"Sounds easy enough," Zell said. "Why don't you let me type them in? Your eyes look like they're about to fall outta their sockets."

"You know how to do this?" Irvine asked.

"Walk me through it," Zell said, and pulled the laptop over to his side of the desk.

"Thanks, mate," Irvine said, crossing his arms on the desk and burying his face into the crook. "Go to the menu on the top left corner. Click on _SeeDs_."

Zell did so. "Go on."

"From the droooo-" Irvine let out a huge yawn. "Drop down menu, choose _Profiles_."

"Done."

"Choose a profile and click on _Assign Call Sign._"

"And then I just type in their call sign for the operation?" Zell asked.

"Ayup."

"Where's the list of registered call signs?"

"It's the top form on the folder," Irvine said.

"Got it," Zell said, and placed the form right next to the laptop on the desk.

Zell quickly went through profile after profile, entering the code names written down on the form Irvine had filled out. He noticed that Seifer's teammates had all registered call signs that were only two characters long. From the looks of it, they had used similar call signs in the past, if not the exact same ones, since he found it hard to believe that it was simply a coincidence they had all had the exact same idea.

Seifer, he saw, had registered himself as _NL_. _NL? What the heck does that stand for?_ Zell wondered. "Hey, Irvine," he said, nudging his friend. "What do you think-?"

But Irvine was fast asleep, and blissfully ignorant as to why Seifer had chosen that particular call sign.

Zell turned back to the screen. He typed in the two character-long code name and was about to hit _Enter_. His finger hovered over the button.

A wonderful idea occurred to him. He bit his lip, smothering a chuckle and decided it was high time he had some fun on Seifer's expense for a change.

He hit _Backspace_ twice and began to type again, grinning as he did so.

* * *

Quistis placed her freshly ironed uniform on a hanger in her wardrobe, careful not to wrinkle it in the process. A few final chores were part of her nightly routine; it made enjoying her morning coffee far easier if she had little else to do other than take a nice, long shower.

Pushing her glasses up her nose, she made sure everything was ready for tomorrow. _Clothes ironed? Check_, she mentally noted. _Boots shined? Check. Enough coffee for tomorrow? Eh, semi-check. Enough for a couple of days, give or take,_ she thought, examining the nearly empty bag of coffee in her mini-fridge. _I'll need to go shopping before we leave Esthar. Shampoo is nearly-_

Her train of thought was interrupted when she heard a knock on her door. Puzzled, she checked her watch. It was nearly eleven; the lights were about to go out.

"Who is it?" she asked, shutting the door of the fridge.

"It's Squall."

Getting a visitor at this hour of the night was odd enough, but having that visitor be Squall was outlandish. Even the most disciplined SeeDs didn't go to bed until just a few seconds before eleven, but not Squall; from what Quistis knew, he was never found out of bed after 2230 sharp.

"Just a sec," she called out, and got up to answer the door.

She was greeted with the sight of a very nervous-looking Squall. He kept looking over his shoulder, as if afraid someone might come across him and infer Hyne-knew-what from this late night visit.

"Hey," Quistis said. "Is something wrong?"

Squall turned to her. "I have something for you."

Quistis blinked. "All right... Would you like to come in?" she asked, stepping aside to make room for him to walk in.

"No, no, I have to go," Squall said, shaking his head. "I just came over to give you this," he said, and handed her a sloppily wrapped, lumpy package.

Before Quistis had any time to open it, Squall looked over his shoulder again and then leaned in a little closer. "Just keep quiet about this, okay?" he said, grimacing. "Be at the Presidential Palace at 0700 hours sharp. Kiros will tell you what to do."

And without giving her the chance to speak, Squall turned his heel and made his way down the hall to his quarters.

Quistis stared from the package in her hands to Squall's departing form and back, completely befuddled. "Presidential... what?" she muttered out loud.

She had half a mind to go after Squall and ask for a more illuminating explanation, but he had made it clear he did not want to be seen wandering the halls at this hour. Instead, she walked over to her bed and began tearing the wrapping apart.

The lumpy object inside was clothing, but nothing that Quistis could recognize upon first glance. And yet, there was something very familiar about the blue, gray, yellow –_Good Hyne, how many colors are there?-_ piece of elastic garment. She picked it up and held it out in front of her, studying it. The more she looked at it, the more she came to the conclusion that it was supposed to be a very flamboyant, very odd diving suit. And then it hit her.

It was an Esthari guard uniform.


	9. Chapter 8: Provehito In Altum

**DISCLAIMER: **If you recognize it, it ain't mine.

**A/N: **There is a SeeD operation taking place in this chapter. Since I have no affiliation with the military whatsoever and most of my research on the matter came up with little of use, I hope you'll be able to look past how fake it all sounds. I tried my best, but I'm pretty sure it's far, _far_ from anything remotely resembling the real deal.

Also, the quote 'playing footsie under the rubble' doesn't belong to me. I wish it did, but I'm no Joss Whedon.

On a happy note, I have finally discovered why the formatting sucks. I never thought I'd actually endorse Internet Explorer for, well, _anything_, but for the best formatting (at least on this site), this is the browser you wanna go with. Unfortunately, little bits and pieces of punctuation, prose etc still seem to get eaten up and vanish into cyber space no matter what I do. If you notice any sentences ending abruptly and making absolutely no sense, I swear it's not my fault.

Finally, the are no words that properly convey how much I'm enjoying writing the Squall vs Seifer scenes. Expect more of what you're about to read in the future!

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 8: **Provehito In Altum

* * *

_"From the living fountain of instinct flows everything that is creative; _

_hence the unconscious is not merely conditioned by history, _

_but is the very source of the creative impulse. _

_It is like Nature herself... prodigiously conservative, _

_and yet transcending her own historical conditions in her acts of creation."__** - Carl Jung**_

_**

* * *

**_

"Hyne, girl, have you gone up a cup size?"

Quistis said something Selphie couldn't make out; a thick layer of elastic fabric was covering her face as Selphie and Rinoa struggled to yank the top of the Esthari uniform down. The tights had been easy to put on, but the top had been giving them a hard time for nearly half an hour now.

They were currently having two problems: the top was stuck between Quistis's eyebrows and her collarbone. Neither neckline nor hem were stretching wide enough to pass over Quistis's head and chest respectively.

Quistis, certain she was starting to turn blue from the lack of oxygen, had half a mind to pull the whole thing off to catch her breath, but at that precise moment, Rinoa's fingers closed around a small piece of metal at the back of the top.

"Hey, there's a hidden zipper here," she said, and pulled it down.

Quistis's face emerged at long last, a mess of disheveled hair and flushed skin, and she drew a big gulp of air. She wobbled on the spot for a moment, before reaching out to grab Rinoa's shoulder and steady herself.

"Still won't go over her knockers, though," Selphie grunted, still trying to pull the hem down. "Don't breathe for a second, will ya?"

Quistis threw Selphie a dirty look, panting.

"Your ribcage swells every time you do," Selphie explained. "And your love melons aren't helping matters as it is," she added, and gave the top a sharp tug downwards.

"Stop using euphemisms for my breasts!" Quistis wheezed.

She was starting to think this really wasn't such a good idea after all. She was painfully aware of the fact that she now owed Squall a big favor, since procuring an Esthari guard uniform must've certainly cost him an unwanted trip to his father, and an even more unwanted –and no doubt complicated- conversation.

Even worse, if caught in this disguise, she was likely to bring humiliation not only upon herself, but the whole mission and everyone involved in it as well.

Not to mention the fact that the damned uniform was starting to get on her nerves. She wasn't _t__hat_ well-endowed and she found it hard to believe that she had a broader back than the average Esthari guard. Then again, the problem seemed to be her chest, and come to think of it, she didn't think she'd ever seen a female guard in Esthar before.

"Rinoa, can't you... like... shrink them with a spell?" Selphie suggested, pointing at Quistis's chest. "Temporarily!" she hastened to add, as Quistis looked scandalized at the suggestion.

"Wouldn't it be more sensible to enlarge the uniform?" Quistis said wryly.

"Whatever, just as long as we get the. Damned. Thing. On!" Selphie grunted, yanking the hem with every word she spat out.

"I can try, but she has to take it off," Rinoa said, running a hand through her hair. "I can't manipulate two different substances at once; they might fuse together."

That particular piece of information was enough to get Selphie to stop her futile efforts. "Ewwww, like a Quisty-uniform hybrid?" she said, in what was probably intended to be a disgusted tone, but the gleam in her eye told Quistis that she was secretly fascinated by the idea.

_Time for drastic measures. _"Hey, Selphie, aren't you cutting it a little short?" the blonde said pointedly."It's nearly six."

Selphie checked her watch and immediately let out a yelp.

"I have to go!" she exclaimed. "Are you girls gonna be okay without me?" she asked, biting her lower lip, torn between wanting to help and wanting to be on time for the assembly at the gates.

"We'll manage," Quistis said.

"Good luck!"

Selphie gave them both a hurried goodbye and rushed out of the room.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Quistis reached around her back to undo the zipper of the uniform. "She can be exhausting some times," she told Rinoa, and pulled the top off to hand it to her.

The Sorceress held the top out in front of her, grinning. "Getting up so early is an acquired habit, but I swear, no-one handles it better than Selphie does," she said, and pressed her palm against the fabric, concentrating on enlarging the top.

Quistis sat down on her bed, watching her friend's handiwork in fascination. Though she had adapted to her new-found powers with ease two years ago, Rinoa had come an even longer way since then. It had been clear from the beginning that she had amazing potential, but it had mostly manifested itself in large outputs of magic she had little control over. With time, she had learned to tap into that vast pool of arcane power far more efficiently.

While she was proud of her friend, it often scared Quistis how the universe was now a plaything for Rinoa. It scared her, that, at times, if she looked close enough, the fabric of time and space seemed to break down in little tendrils between the girl's fingers.

If she was capable of such wonders at this stage, what would she be able to do a few years into the future?

"Quistis?"

Quistis blinked and looked up at Rinoa, who was now holding out the newly expanded top for her.

"You looked miles away," Rinoa said. "What were you thinking about?"

"How do you do it?" Quistis asked, before she could stop herself.

"Do what?" Rinoa asked.

"This... everything. Your magic."

Rinoa simply shrugged and looked at the top in her hands. "It's a little hard to explain," she said. "When I look at something with the intent to change it, I don't see what's there anymore. I see what could be. I visualize it, and it happens."

"Just like that?"

"It used to be an effort," Rinoa explained. "I remember feeling the magic burst into flame in my gut. And then a tug, as the magic rushed in. Like someone was pulling a hook behind my navel, dragging my insides through my veins and down to my fingertips."

Quistis felt her stomach churn. For someone who claimed she had trouble explaining the sensation, Rinoa was providing a particularly thorough and gruesome mental image.

"It felt horrible for just a split second," she went on, running her fingers over the shirt. "But then your body adjusts and you feel... invincible."

When she spoke those last few words, the material of the top began to respond to her ministrations. It liquefied under her touch, now resembling molten glass. As if she had forgotten all about Quistis's presence in the room, Rinoa lifted up one finger and examined the gum-like strand of fabric that stretched between her hand and the top. As quickly as it had happened, it was over. Rinoa snapped out of her reverie, and blinked.

"Aw, damn," she whispered, and set about to repair the damage she had done. "There you go," she said, and handed the shirt back to Quistis.

Wordlessly, she took it and tried it on, turning her back to Rinoa.

_Calm down, calm down... She's Rinoa, she's your friend,_ she mentally tried to calm herself. It was taking every single ounce of self-composition not to show any signs of fear. She had faced danger before, often fearless and ready, but the very notion that one of her best friends could possibly be a threat was crippling her with dread.

"I'd better get ready as well," the Sorceress said. "Are you riding with us to the palace?"

Quistis nodded, but didn't turn around. "Thanks, this is a much better fit," she muttered.

"Do you need any help?"

"No, no, I'll be fine. I'll see you at the parking lot in few minutes."

It was only when the sound of Rinoa's steps out in the corridor faded that Quistis fell down to her knees, quivering like a rabbit. Cold sweat trickled down her spine. _This is not normal,_ she realized. This wasn't simply the fear of turning against a loved one. There was something else, chilling like a ghost, lingering in the pit of her stomach. Like an invisible hand, firmly gripping her intestines and twisting them round and round.

The terror that swept her was a helpless fear, a child's nameless fear of dark rooms. Her vision blurred, and for a moment, she could have sworn she only now saw Rinoa's shadow disappear under the crack of the door.

* * *

"All units on standby. Confirm positions and call signs. Over."

"Booyaka34, securing southeast side! Over!"

"MS, with Booyaka34. Over."

"Razor14, securing northeast side. JH is with me. Over."

"Confirm, JH."

"Affirmative. On standby with Razor14."

"HD...er... wait, um... HDs... er...4..."

"Pick a harder one next time."

"Shut up! HDs4Eva, patrolling northwest side. Over."

"MX, along with- Please don't make me say that."

"C'mon MX, confirm."

"It's H-D-s-4-E-v-a."

"Right. H...D..."

"You guys, this is Cowboy17's first full-scale operation and you're being a bunch of knuckleheads!"

"Nice codename, by the way. Subtle. A true master of mystery, you are."

"Enough with the commentary. Never mind, MX, we know who you're with. Movin' on."

"YL, here. I'm on the southwest side. Over."

"Tee-hee-hee..."

"YL's partner, please confirm your call sign and position."

"Hee-hee-hee..."

"..."

"Do you cop-?"

"Yes, I fucking copy!"

"Confirm your call sign and position, then!"

"This is bullshit."

"Heh, heh..."

"This isn't supposed to take that long, guys!"

"Booyaka34 is right. Can we please get this over with already?"

"I'm not confirming shite. Who the hell gave me this call sign?"

"You did. You registered your own call sign, now conf-"

"I didn't register this crap!"

"Hahahahahaaa..."

"Then who the heck did?"

"I'll give you three guesses: Chuckles, Chicken Wuss or the idiot who registered a call sign he can't remember."

"Hee-hee-hee..."

"I'm confirming with my usual call sign."

"Negative. Please use your registered one."

"...this is bloody ridiculous. YL can confirm who I am."

"Negative, YL. You do not have permission."

"...I hate you all."

"The ceremony is about to begin and we're still monkeyin' around with this shit! You will confirm your position and call sign _now_ or you will face the consequences. This is an _order._"

"..."

"I'm waiting."

"...Bitch-In-Heet, securing the southwest side with YL. Over."

"HAAAAAHAHAHAA!"

"Grow the fuck up, Chicken Wuss. And 'heat' is spelled with an 'a', you tosser."

"Positions and call signs confirmed... _at last_. Commencing operation Sapphire Shield. You have permission to question and remove any potential threats to Bluebird and the Eagle. HDs4Eva, you've been demoted one rank."

"Hey!"

"Ha! Up yours, Chicken Wuss."

"Bitch-In-Heet, you have been demoted two ranks. Over and out."

"Ha-HA!"

"SHUT UP AND GO DO YOUR JOBS!" Irvine yelled into his headpiece, before removing it and tossing it on the console. He sank into his chair, burying his face in his palms. "This is a fuckin' nightmare."

Jack Gonzalo, Communications Specialist from Galbadia Garden (and Seifer's team), cut the transmission feed of the headquarters before turning to Irvine, stretching. "Don't worry, no harm done. It just took a little longer than planned, but we're on schedule."

Irvine let out a groan, staring at his surroundings. He wasn't used to this; he always operated as a sharpshooter where he could choose when to aim, when to shoot, when to retreat. He had never before worked within a confined little van, surrounded by machinery he knew little about, with nothing to do other than hand out orders through a microphone.

"How do you do this?" he asked Jack. "Doesn't it...? I mean, it sounds like an easy job, but when you're the one actually doing it-"

"You feel like you have no control over what happens, right?" Jack finished for him, pushing his round glasses back up his nose.

Irvine nodded.

"It's easier for me because this is pretty much all I know," Jack said, indicating the equipment around them. "I've spent my entire SeeD career doing this and, to be perfectly honest, I'm not of much use in the battlefield. But if you want to lead, you have to learn to take the backseat every now and then. You're supposed to be the tactician of your team today."

"I might have enjoyed this if those idiots actually worked with me," Irvine said, grunting.

"It takes time for a team to learn to work together," Jack said. "You just have to trust that the wankers out there know what they're doing. Simple as that."

"I suppose the real problem is that we've taken SeeDs who have never worked as a team before and shoved them into one big group expectin' it all to go smoothly," Irvine said, staring at the screen in front of him. "Seifer and Zell have a history, y'know."

"Doesn't Seifer have a history with everyone?" Jack said, chuckling. "Unless you want him out of the mission, he's going to be ruffling some feathers out there."

"That's true. But the bastard is pretty damn handy with a gunblade, he could be the difference between failure and success in a mission," Irvine admitted. "Uhhh, no offense meant," he hurried to add, remembering that Seifer was Jack's superior and the latter was probably not going to take insults directed at his leader in stride.

"None taken," Jack said amiably. "I've been working with him for nearly a year now. I know what he's like."

Irvine considered the implications of that statement for a moment. It seemed that Jack had no qualms whatsoever about admitting his leader's faults, but as a SeeD who was part of a close-knit group, that was a major faux pass: one never spoke ill of their superior so openly.

It wasn't just a matter of respect, it was a matter of maintaining the illusion that a team worked like a well-oiled machine and was a force to be reckoned with. Admitting that part of that very machine was defective was a clear opening, one easily exploited by enemies.

Irvine didn't consider himself an enemy of the Galbadian newcomers, but what if they did? What if they had orders to infiltrate B-Garden and gain everyone's trust before betraying them? So little was known about the new Headmaster and the group Seifer had brought along with him, that their true agenda was a mystery to everyone.

What if Jack, like the rest of his team, had been ordered to befriend the Balmish using any means possible?

_The best way to earn our trust,_Irvine thought,_ Would be to find our common ground and and use it against us. We all have history with Seifer, we all have things to resent him for, so what if they're trying to be sympathetic in order to befriend us?_

Jack was certainly capable of something like that, Irvine realized. Earlier this morning, he had seen the man working on setting up the equipment for the square. It was clear he was highly intelligent and had an excellent knowledge of how to operate machinery fit for communications and espionage. It made sense that he would have been trained how to act as a spy as well.

He was not only smart, but also quick on his feet; the day before, when Irvine had escorted the Galbadian team to Squall's office, Jack had been the one to offer explanations for his group's alarmingly busy schedule without so much as the bat of an eyelash.

Unfortunately, Irvine found he could not afford speculating any further. Their mission was now under way, and it required his full attention. Still, he had been ordered to keep an eye on the Galbadians, and the most effective way to go about doing that, he mused, was to do what he suspected them of doing: he would befriend them in an effort to find out as much as he could.

With one eye on the screen, he spoke. "I don't suppose there's a way to edit all this crap out of the audio record?" he asked Jack hopefully, a small grin gracing his lips. "I'm supposed to hand this in for the SeeD archives as part of my report and I'd rather it didn't contain the part where my team spends half an hour bein' boneheads."

"I'll see what I can do," Jack replied, mirroring Irvine's grin.

"Somethin' tells me you've done this before," Irvine said.

"I have ten hours' worth of name-calling, goofing around and general idiocy on tape," Jack replied. "When I first started working with this team, every report I handed in was the bleedin' Director's Cut. Haven't done that in a while though; they learned how to work together after a couple of months."

"Great, so all I have to do is give them two months and everything will work out," Irvine said, motioning at the screen to indicate the eight SeeDs deployed in the square.

"Exactly," Jack said, grinning. "Cola jerky?"

Irvine turned around at the sound of plastic crinkling and saw that Jack had just opened a bag of mock-jerky, long strips of some sort of elastic, chewy substance that tasted like Cola. One hundred percent nutrient-free, one thousand percent delicious.

"I'm more a fan of crisps, personally, but I'll take one, thanks," he said, and dipped his hand into the bag.

"Now there's a good man," Jack said, munching on a strip. "If I hear one more person call them _chips_, I'm going on the rampage. And we can't have crisps here because of the equipment. No crumbs allowed, sorry."

"You've thought this through, I see," Irvine said and tugged at the end of his jerky with his teeth.

"I've been in the van for a loooong time, mate."

* * *

Laguna looked over the top of Rinoa's head, checking his reflection on the mirror. After having flailed hopelessly with his tie for almost half an hour, he had entrusted its fate into Rinoa's capable hands.

Once she was done, the young Sorceress took a step back and faced the mirror as well. "There. Full Windsor knot," she said, smiling.

"You're a lifesaver," Laguna said, sighing in relief. "I'm not really used to ties," he explained himself to her. "I usually wear traditional Esthari garb for these events, but..." he trailed off. His eyes fell upon Squall who stood a few feet behind them, arms crossed, his face a mask of barely concealed impatience.

Nearly thirty minutes ago and after a brief visit to Ellone, who would not be attending the ceremony, Squall and Rinoa had knocked on the door of Laguna's quarters. Laguna had greeted them wearing a broad grin, and a spectacular black kimono, embroidered with fine golden thread in the shapes of dragons. It was clear from Rinoa's wide smile that she approved, but the look Squall had given him carried an easily discernible message: He was not about to be seen anywhere near his father while he wore a kimono.

Ward had hurried forward, gesturing something that Laguna took to mean "I told you so," and ushered a pouting, crestfallen President back behind the changing screen. Wordlessly, Laguna had changed into one of his many elegant -_Boring_, he had ruefully thought- suits.

"All right!" Laguna exclaimed, running a hand through his hair as he took one final look in the mirror. "Are we all ready to go?" he asked the room at large. "Or should we wait for Cid and Edea? They are joining us, aren't they?"

"Uh... actually, I'm not sure-" Rinoa began.

In response, Squall abandoned his spot in the dark corner and walked up to Rinoa, offering her his arm. Somewhat reluctantly, Laguna noted, she took it. "They're not," Squall said. "We can go."

"Are we meeting them at the platform?" Laguna asked.

"They're not coming to the ceremony," Squall replied.

"How come?"

"Didn't ask," Squall said. Judging by the look on his face, he was anxious to get going and was in no mood to answer questions concerning the Headmaster and his wife. _Then again,_ Laguna thought, _Squall hates answering most questions._

"Headmaster Kramer called earlier this morning," Kiros piped in. "He asked me to convey his regrets for not being here, but Mrs. Kramer was not feeling very well today. I told you all about it while you were getting dressed, remember?"

"No," Laguna said, blinking. "You never said anything of the sort; I'm sure I would've-"

At that moment, Ward began to gesticulate wildly. It was a language that none but Kiros seemed to fully grasp, much to Laguna's irritation. Sometimes, he was under the impression Kiros used Ward's obscure means of communication as a way to openly state what _he_ thought of a situation, rather than translate Ward's own opinion.

"Ward says you were too busy obsessing over your obi to listen," Kiros explained, referring to the intricate sash worn as a belt of sorts over a kimono.

_Case in point,_ Laguna thought, scowling.

"Well then, shall we?" Kiros asked, putting his fingertips together. "Rinoa, is everything all right?"

Rinoa looked up at the sound of her name. "What? Oh, I'm fine," she said. "Just..." She turned to Squall. "If Edea is ill, perhaps I should..."

Squall's frown deepened. Laguna, by now rather familiar with his son's expressions and mannerisms, saw he wasn't looking at Rinoa unkindly, but rather in concerned manner.

"You should let her rest," the Commander said. "The ceremony won't take too long and you can go visit her later. We have to make an appearance today," he reminded her.

"I..." Rinoa hesitated, looking a little torn. "You're right. I'm sorry," she said. As if flicking on a switch, her face shifted from a frown and into a smile within milliseconds. "Let's go."

Laguna paid little attention to the proceeding events. He had long ago gotten used to receiving salutes whenever he entered or left a room, and the notion of walking around with an armed guard surrounding him was old news as well. He went through the motions mechanically, his eyes staying focused on Rinoa.

Anyone who knew her well enough could see she was only pretending to look cheerful, but it would fool everyone else. As a Sorceress, Rinoa had had to learn how to present a winning and engaging persona when in public, no matter what she felt like on the inside. Generations upon generations of bad blood concerning Sorceresses had fallen upon her shoulders and it didn't matter that she had nothing to do with the actions of her predecessors; whenever the public needed to vent, she was the easiest target.

It seemed almost cruel, both to her and to the people, to flaunt her so on every occasion possible, but Laguna was of the firm opinion that she could use the publicity. Keeping her behind closed doors would translate as the need to keep something secret, and Laguna was adamant that they needed to show Rinoa had no agenda, nor any delusions of grandeur. Rinoa played the part of the humble, remorseful wrongfully-labeled-villain very well, and though not everyone was used to the idea of a benign Sorceress quite yet, the press she received nowadays was a far cry from the outrage of the past.

There was little else he could do other than feel sorry for the girl he thought of as a daughter -no matter what Squall's intentions for her were. He forced all thoughts of Rinoa's fate off his mind and tried instead to focus on the impending event; they were nearing the palace exit.

Eager to find something else to occupy himself with, he marveled at the gleaming floors and windows of the palace. It never failed to impress and humble him, the number of people who worked hard, quiet and unseen, so that he could live in such luxury. He had assumed the post nearly twenty years ago, yet it still made him somewhat uncomfortable to be waited upon by people who had the same, if not better, upbringing that he had.

Without intending it, his gaze fell upon the small squadron of guards, or rather, one guard in particular. There was a stiff and decidedly uninteresting quality about a soldier's well-practiced gait that this particular guard appeared to lack. Being a liberal man, Laguna had never been one to criticize sexual orientation, but he had never had to question his either. Until now.

"What's wrong?" Kiros whispered upon seeing the frown on Laguna's face.

"I—" Laguna began, hesitating. The guard in front of him was trying his damndest to stop his hips from swaying, but among an entire row of rigid and straight derrières, his efforts were glaringly obvious. "Nothing," Laguna finished, forcing himself to look anywhere but at the well-formed figure in front of him. Kiros didn't press the matter, much to his relief.

Mercifully, a distraction soon arrived as the doors of the palace slid open and Laguna readied the mask of seriousness he always wore for public appearances. Their small company was greeted into the square by a sea of applause and the slightly distant sound of an orchestra playing a welcoming march. It wasn't a composition he had ever heard before, but it was pleasant to the ear and appropriate for the cheerful occasion.

The decorations for the event were nothing extravagant, but it was a very pleasant sight nonetheless to see the normally drab square so full of color and people. There were two platforms: one at the very north of the plaza and a much smaller one right across, on the other end, where the orchestra had been set up and a small firework display was scheduled to launch before the blessing ceremony.

The large platform held the podium, where the Laguna himself and the Archbishop would be able to make their speeches and address the crowd. Behind it, a small construct of metal poles had been set up in order to display the banners of the two entities whose alliance would be celebrated this day: the scarlet banner of the Church of Hyne, upon which a magnificent, two-headed golden eagle could be seen, and the white banner of Esthar, depicting a crescent moon in the process of expelling a large number of monsters down to Gaia, commonly known as the Lunar Cry.

A little to the east of the platform, a nearby construction site had been cleverly disguised, Laguna was glad to see, as a giant projection screen; the site had been covered up from top to bottom in thick, white sheets. Since the actual foundations of E-Garden were outside the city and the people present could not attend the final part of the event, the screen had been set up so the public would be able to watch as a small procession of vehicles would leave the square and reach E-Garden to complete the ceremony.

As a finishing touch, the perimeter of the square had been decorated with lengths of rope that carried cubic, colorful lanterns and smaller versions of the two banners. Two such ropes extended from either end of the construct on the platform, one ending at the ground below and the other over at the projection screen.

Pleased with the decoration of the plaza, Laguna mentally prepared himself for his upcoming speech as he began to ascend the steps to the makeshift platform, following his guard. He saw, out of the corner of his eye, Squall pressing a finger against his ear and muttering something unintelligible into the microphone pinned on the inside of his neckline. His trepidation was somewhat quelled by the knowledge that his son was already in command of the situation. They still hadn't gotten to know each other as well as he would've liked, but Laguna knew enough to be certain that Squall had been thorough and careful in his preparations.

Feeling confident, he approached the podium. Behind him, his guard along with Squall, Rinoa, Ward and Kiros, took positions. The applause slowly died down and Laguna fixed the microphone before him to a proper height. "My fellow Estharis, welcome!" he said, and the crowd broke into cheers once more.

In the small window of time he had until he had to resume his speech, Laguna glanced down at his right hand. In horror, he stared at the shock of white peeking from his grey suit; the shirt was stained black at the wrist. His mind backpedaled to one hour ago, when Kiros had snatched the crisp sheet of paper Laguna had written his speech upon and had insisted that it looked tacky and unprofessional to read from script while addressing his people. Laguna had spent the remainder of that time until Squall arrived scribbling bullet points of his speech on his right wrist. With a kimono on, glancing under the sleeve every now and then would have been easy. Now that he wore a suit… not so much.

The crowd's clapping died down once more, and Laguna willed himself to stop panicking. _Wing it,_ he urged himself. _Just wing it, man. You've faced down a Ruby Dragon; this should be a piece of cake._ He reached for the slim glass of water set up on the podium and drained it in one long gulp. "It gives me great pleasure," he began, struggling to remember what little he had learned by heart while practicing his speech. _Don'tfuckthisup, don'tfuckthisup, don'tfuckthisup. _"To be present at such a wonderful moment in the history of the great nation of Esthar. Let this be a small glimpse of the shapely things—"

"Shape!" came a hiss from his right. He didn't turn to acknowledge the source, but it had sounded like Kiros. "The _shape_ of things!"

"The shape," Laguna corrected, laughing nervously. "Of the shape of things to come."

_I'm doomed._

_

* * *

_

Seifer rummaged through his pockets in search of a lighter. How he always managed to lose the damn thing was beyond him.

The usual culprit was Felix, who, as a casual smoker, never carried neither a pack nor a lighter and kept bugging others –Seifer in particular- for either or both. He also had the annoying habit of keeping the lighters for himself. But Felix was on the other side of the square at the moment, so he was out of the question.

With a groan, Seifer realized that the right pocket of his leather jacket had a hole in it. Thankfully, it wasn't the pocket he usually placed his pack into.

"Got a light?" he asked, cigarette dangling from his lips.

Rhys, the SeeD who had been assigned to watch over that part of the square along with him, shook his head. "Felix stole it again?" he asked.

"No, slipped through a hole in my pocket," Seifer said, grunting and placing the unlit cigarette back in its pack.

"It's going well so far," Rhys said, staring up at the platform where the President was still delivering his speech.

Seifer swept their perimeter at a glance, looking for any signs of trouble, but found none.

Most of the protesters from the day before had been apprehended by the city police for vandalizing pretty much everything on their way to the palace, including the palace gates themselves. As such, there was little concern of trouble from their side, but both Loire and the Archbishop were prominent enough figures to attract hostility from a large number of parties.

"Oh sure," Seifer said, turning to look at the platform as well. "If only he would call the Archbishop a fox, next... Seriously, _shapely,_" he scoffed, grinning.

"I meant things have been quiet so far," Rhys said, but he was grinning as well.

For the remainder of the President's address, Seifer and Rhys had little to do other than join the ripple of smothered laughter that went through the crowd every time Laguna made a blunder. Once or twice, Seifer saw the man reach for the glass on the podium, only to find it empty and resume his speech in a croak, until someone finally decided to bring him a refill. _I can't believe I used to idolize this clown,_ he thought, shaking his head in disbelief.

The minutes ticked by, and so far the only mildly stimulating moment of the event came when Laguna addressed 'Sorceress Rinoa.' Some people applauded, but many began to boo upon her mention. It took the crowd a few moments to quiet down, and Seifer saw Rinoa shift uncomfortably up on the platform, as if she was trying to blend in with the background and disappear. A pang of guilt cut through him at the sight of her; he knew he wasn't directly responsible for her transformation, and if it hadn't been him who had acted as Ultimecia's instrument it would've been someone else. Still, the fact that Rinoa had never intended for any of this to happen and had been nothing but a victim of circumstances was eating him up.

_They will never let it go, _he thought, the muscles of his jaw tightening. Esthar had been on the receiving end of a Sorceress's wrath in the past, and the last war had been no kinder to them. Even though it had been Deling City and Galbadia in general who had suffered the worst under Edea's short-lived reign, Esthar was hit with the bulk of the Lunar Cry. While other nations were celebrating the end of the war, they were the ones left cleaning up the mess. They weren't going to be sold on Rinoa's peaceful intentions any time soon.

The second wave of excitement came when the Archbishop was introduced, but once again, nothing happened. There was no suspicious movement from the spectators, no dissatisfied yells this time around. The young head of the Hynean Church received the crowd's adoration through tumultuous applause and cheers. The two leaders, political and religious, shook hands, and it was time for the Archbishop to address the citizens of Esthar.

Seifer let out a groan. "With a little luck, this speech will lull everyone to sleep and we won't have to move a muscle till the end," he said.

"Not a fan of the Archbishop?" Rhys asked, glancing at Seifer.

"Not a fan of long, boring speeches," Seifer replied. As if to reiterate his point, he let out a long-drawn yawn. "First Loire and now him… Does anyone buy this tree-hugging crap anymore?"

"He's representing the Church of Hyne," Rhys said. "What do you expect him to talk about, murder, death and carnage?"

"He can talk about why the fuck I keep stumbling across a bloody Codex Caelestis in every hotel I stay," Seifer said, frowning. It's not that the holy book containing the word of Hyne bothered him, per se. It had, on occasion, served him well as a paperweight or something heavy to kill bugs with, but he had spent so many nights in seedy motels -and only marginally less seedy hotels- during his latest missions that seeing that book alone was a reminder of lumpy mattresses and brown water in the shower.

"Don't let Nyx hear you say that," Rhys said. "His family is really big on religion."

"Yeah, yeah," Seifer drawled. "I just don't like having it all shoved down my throat and I sure as hell don't like pr—" he began, but came to a sudden stop.

"What? What is it?"

"Shut up for a second," Seifer said, narrowing his eyes into a squint and scanning the crowd a few feet ahead.

"What's wrong?" Rhys asked, trying to determine where Seifer was looking at to follow suit.

Seifer held up a hand to silence Rhys and kept on sweeping the area. _C'mon, c'mon, I know I saw you, _he thought, looking for the familiar face he had caught a glimpse of. _I saw you, dammit, now where-? _"There," he whispered, once he found the man in question, motioning as discreetly as possible with his head."Guy in the grey , brown hair, jacket is lined with fur."

The man wouldn't have looked like a threat to anyone else; he wasn't doing anything suspicious, he didn't seem to be carrying any weapons upon first glance, and was simply enjoying the ceremony. But Seifer had seen that face before.

He had seen it on a picture in the folder he had received from Jonah when they had been assigned their latest mission in Trabia. It had been a dead-end and a complete failure. All they'd found was a crazy old woman within an abandoned hideout and crates filled with nothing but blue petals.

"Recognize him?" Seifer asked Rhys.

The shorter man blanched. "Oh Hyne, he's- From the Trabia suspects..."

"Yeah," Seifer said, nodding. "I'm going after him," he added, without a moment's hesitation.

"Wait!" Rhys hissed, grabbing hold of Seifer's jacket. "The mission! We have to stay in the square-"

"Jonah said our own mission takes priority," Seifer reminded him, frowning. "Besides, I'm not leaving the square."

"Seifer—"

"Stay here," he ordered. "Keep your eyes on the Archbishop and focus on the Garden objective. I'll go alone."

Seifer ignored Rhys's hushed pleas as he walked towards the suspect. It wasn't a good idea to leave his partner alone to keep an eye on such a large area of the square, but the Trabia mission had been a sore spot for him. They had never failed before, and the fact that they had nearly killed themselves for nothing was hard to let go. They had received no word on canceling their investigation from the client, so for all intents and purposes, it was considered ongoing.

What struck him as he moved closer to his target, was the fact that this was an awfully big coincidence.

After their resounding failure in Trabia, Seifer had been summoned to appear as a representative of G-Garden in front of the Garden Council. Due to the outcome of that meeting, he had been relocated to B-Garden to serve as a liaison, and had, as a result, been assigned this very mission, where he just so happened to come across a link to the dead-end from Trabia.

It was all too... neat. Too convenient. He could feel it in his gut that something wasn't quite right.

_"What the hell do you think you're doing?" _

Irvine's voice through the commlink was enough to jolt him back to reality.

Pressing the tiny button on his earpiece, Seifer spoke into the microphone hidden on the neckline of his jacket. "Following a suspect. Over."

_"You see a suspect, you mention it on the Hynedamned line. Over."_

"I'm not even sure there's anything going on," Seifer lied. "I'll request backup if I need it. Over."

There was a sigh from the other end of the line. _"YL, keep your eyes on the Eagle. Don't worry about the Bluebird, BalambLion has that covered. Make sure your partner doesn't do anything stupid. Over and out."_

After a brief mental pause to snicker at Squall's choice of a call sign as well as his determination to watch over his father on his own, Seifer continued to comb through the crowd, getting closer and closer to the suspect.

The man was completely engrossed in the Archbishop's speech, Seifer was relieved to see. It would make his apprehension easier and less troublesome, without interrupting the ceremony or alarming the crowd.

No sooner had he formed that thought, than everything went wrong.

"...for all our brothers and sisters. Amen," the Archbishop said in closing.

The crowd cheered, and up on the platform, Laguna stepped forward to give the Archbishop a warm handshake, then raised his other hand in a signal. The moment he did so, there was a shrill, loud whiz from the small platform at the far back of the square, followed by a loud bang.

The crowd gasped, some even screamed, but the panicked yells soon dissolved into loud applause when they saw that the source of the sound had been the fireworks that had just been launched. Many children, riding up on their parents' shoulders, cheered and there were 'Oooohs' and 'Ahhhs' from everyone as the blue morning sky exploded into hues of festive green and red.

Seifer hurried forward, taking advantage of the distracting spectacle, but came to a screeching halt when he saw the man turn to look at the small platform where the orchestra had now began playing an uplifting march.

Seifer was about to turn his heel and hide his face, but he wasn't quick enough. The moment the man in the grey jacket turned around, he saw him. And judging by his expression, he, too, recognized Seifer. His reaction wasn't subtle; he broke into a run.

Cursing through his teeth, Seifer followed suit.

Zig-zagging through the people in the plaza was no easy feat; the suspect was being slowed down, but he never moved in a straight line to avoid making a hole through the crowd. _Clever bastard,_ Seifer thought, not bothering with any apologies as he pushed through anyone who got in his way. _He knows I can't fire a spell unless I have a clear field._

It soon became clear the suspect was heading outside the square. Seifer had to wonder at the man's thought process; the crowd was protecting him. Perhaps he thought he could lose Seifer by hiding into the alleys of Esthar City, but he was making a big mistake, one Seifer was all too pleased about.

Seifer soon discovered that choosing to leave the square was not a mistake at all; the man was fast. Insanely so, and for the first time in four years Seifer found himself cursing the day he first touched a cigarette. His legs were willing to carry him forward, but his lungs were not. He wasn't quite at that point yet, but he would soon be out of breath, he knew that much.

The suspect raced on ahead, making a sharp turn into a nearby alley and disappeared from sight. Thankful that at the very least he now had a clear field, Seifer tried to concentrate. His fingertips began to tingle, and for a split second, he could hear nothing but the pounding of his own footsteps as the spell began to take form in his hand.

He made the turn, bursting into the alley and then everything went dark.

His whole body swung roughly to one side and pain erupted on his nose and cheekbone. The force of the punch he had just been hit with blew the earpiece off his ear. It felt to the ground with a gentle clatter and Seifer soon followed suit.

His assailant, clearly realizing he wasn't going to win a one-on-one fight, broke into a run again.

The blond forced himself to roll on his back as fast as he could. He could feel the salty, metallic taste of blood on his lips as is trickled down his nostril, but he ignored it and reached into his mind for a spell, any spell that would help.

In his disoriented state, the force of the spell wasn't great, but his aim was perfect and it had the desired effect: the suspect lost his footing and came to a sudden stop, as the swirling gust of wind of the Aero spell engulfed him and held him in place. It didn't last long, but it was more time than Seifer needed to get up on his feet and close the distance.

The spell faded out and the suspect made a move to keep running, but Seifer pulled out Hyperion and in one broad sweep, brought the blade to his opponent's neck, making him freeze in his tracks.

"Run for it and you're dead," Seifer said, panting.

The man, resigned to his fate, held up his hands, his shoulders arching and falling as he, too, tried to steady his breath.

"Turn around," Seifer ordered.

* * *

Quistis was glad she'd worn a full-body uniform; if she hadn't, she might have felt a little embarrassed at the smitten look now written all over her face.

It wasn't the most ideal set of circumstances, but with every word that left the Archbishop's mouth, she felt her heart swell with love and warmth; it was enough to be in his presence alone, it was enough that she had witnessed this event. It didn't matter that she couldn't approach him afterwards and express her ardent admiration of him, it didn't matter that the uniform was rough and itchy. For a few blissful moments, she had even forgotten all about what had transpired in her room earlier that morning.

Faith. It was a beautiful thing to know that no matter what, she was not alone out there. There had been a moment during Time Compression, when she had forgotten all about what made her who she was. Her friends, her career, Matron and Cid… Every connection she had in the physical world had been severed, and she had felt cold, vulnerable and alone. It would have been tremendously easy not to make an effort, not to try to remember. She had been friendless before, and she had known the cold sting of rejection. Were her companions truly her friends? Did the people who brought her up think of her as anything more than a soldier? Was she going to lose everything when all was said and done?

Her ties to all that mattered to her became a tight rope, one she balanced precariously upon, and below her was nothing but mute, endless abyss. It would have been so easy to slip…

But she hadn't.

Something held her up, something made her remember. She didn't know what, who or why, but she knew what she had felt. There were many names for it, but most people called it Hyne. All she knew was that at that moment, it felt like the ether itself had reached out, held out a hand and whispered into her ear: "You are not alone."

This was the feeling she re-experienced every time she heard this man speak. His was a voice that melted all hints of fear and insecurities away, leaving her feeling strong, beautiful, confident and loved. It was a voice that spoke of peace and beauty, and despite all the ugliness in the world, all the horrible things she had witnessed and knew to be true, she needed to believe there was still an Arcadia out there somewhere in the hearts of the people.

Everything about him radiated serenity and balance. He was neither beautiful nor ugly, but he had gentle features: warm hazel eyes, soft-looking chestnut hair, delicate lips and nose. There was nothing extreme, nothing extravagant about him. His was a humble and silent beauty and it came as no surprise that the people stood behind him so firmly. His charisma was overwhelming the way the rising sun's light was: intense and warm, without being harsh and uninviting.

So deeply engrossed was she in appreciating the young Archbishop, that it took her many minutes before she realized something was wrong.

On the far side of the platform, Squall was handling what looked like a crisis as discreetly as possible. He was whispering furiously into his microphone and it seemed as though he was trying very hard not to show any hints of emotion on his face. It had taken her a long time, but she was now able to see the subtle changes on his facial features that were more pronounced on others. He was worried and upset, but for what, she couldn't tell.

When she had joined Squall and Rinoa that morning, she had followed them only as far as the palace gates. Kiros had assisted her afterwards; as it turned out, he was the one who had supplied the uniform and he was the only one save her friends who knew of the plan to keep her incognito. Since she wasn't officially part of the SeeD team deployed, she hadn't been given any means of communication with the rest of her peers, but was instead on the commlink with the rest of the Esthari guards; there were no reports of anything suspicious on their end.

She tried to get Squall's attention, but he wasn't looking anywhere near her direction. There was no way to approach him and ask what had happened without alerting the rest of the guard, or hiding the fact that there was a crisis afoot from the crowd watching the platform.

As she tried to come up with a solid plan, she heard a sharp "No!" from her left. Turning towards the voice, she saw Laguna raise his hand to signal someone on the far end of the square and Squall, who had just uttered the warning, try in vain to stop him.

"…for all our brothers and sisters. Amen."

For a moment, her heart stopped. There was a loud bang that rooted her on the spot; she was certain that someone had fired a shot. A moment later she was able to relax, realizing that it was only a firework display, but with a sinking feeling, she realized what Squall's warning was all about: if there was a suspect down in the square, the excitement and uproar would be a perfect cover; all eyes were on the multicolored fireworks.

Her eyes, frantic, swept the front rows of the audience, the ones closest to the platform. For a minute or so, she could find nothing amiss, nothing out of the ordinary. And then she saw him; a man standing on the third row turned around and faced the platform, reaching into his jacket.

Quistis didn't wait to see what he was about to reveal. In unison, she and Squall turned to look at each other, and she knew that he had seen him, too. He gave her the slightest of nods, and both of them lunged forward.

"GET DOWN!" she yelled and leapt towards the Archbishop.

Her voice wasn't loud enough to carry through most of the square, but thankfully, everyone on the platform heard her over the deafening sound of fireworks exploding above. The rest of the guard had very little time to react, but as she flew past them, she saw some duck for cover, others look completely befuddled, and some turn towards the President. To her left, Squall's well-honed reflexes kicked in immediately; he looped one arm around Rinoa's waist and with the other, he reached out for the scruff of Laguna's suit jacket. In one fluid motion, he brought them both down on the platform with him.

Quistis collided hard with the Archbishop's body, latching onto any piece of fabric she could wrap her hands around. The bullet whistled over their heads as they crashed down on the hard wooden planks, and it struck the palace guard behind them on the shoulder. Quistis didn't have time to worry about the soldier. He had had enough training to make a decent attempt at protecting himself, but the man currently lying underneath her had none. The Archbishop let out a brief gasp when his back hit the platform; he seemed to only now realize anything had happened.

With a grunt, Quistis yanked the mask of the uniform off and looked up to meet Squall's gaze.

"Get him out of here!" Squall said. Next to him, Rinoa and Laguna were only now starting to get their bearings as well.

"Oh thank Hyne, it was _you_!" Laguna said, looking inexplicably relieved to see Quistis under the uniform.

"What?" Squall hissed, looking at his father.

"Nothing," Laguna muttered, holding Rinoa against him protectively as he watched Squall load the revolver of Leonhart with gleaming, fat bullets. He looked as though he wanted to say or do something, perhaps try to stop Squall from exposing himself, but he pursed his lips in a concerned frown and didn't speak.

Quistis nodded at Squall's order and glanced down. "We need to get you to safety," she said to the Archbishop.

The man looked completely and utterly bewildered. His eyes were wide in shock, looking from the scant protection of the small wooden podium to the wounded soldier, to the female body spread all over his to shield him. There was no telling which of the three facts upset him the most.

"I—" he mumbled, running trembling fingers over his sweating forehead. "I don't und—"

"You are not safe here," Quistis explained hurriedly, rolling off him into a crouching position and scanning their surroundings. "We need to find a way to leave the platform without putting you in harm's way."

Garden Code was now so intertwined with her own instincts that the thought didn't even have to form in her mind; she had to use everything at her disposal, work with her environment. The sudden sight of the blue glow of Squall's Protect spell spreading around the platform reminded her that spellcasting was out of the question. She had nothing junctioned to speak of after explicit orders from Dr. Kadowaki. All traces of magic had been siphoned out of her during her stay at the infirmary, and she had had her SeeD ID updated with a strict prohibition from obtaining any magic capsules within Garden premises.

With a grimace, she realized that_ Save the Queen,_ her trusty, lethal whip, was safely tucked away back in her dorm. The only weapon she carried, the standard issue Esthari guard assault rifle, was not only useless right now, but she was also not trained to properly handle it. It would only be helpful if they encountered enemies face-to-face. For now, the priority was escaping unscathed.

_Think, __think_, she urged herself, looking for anything she could use. She didn't dare try the stairway leading down the platform; she had no idea if the shooter had any accomplices who may have them surrounded. Next to her, the Archbishop scribbled into a sitting position, nearly tripping over the bottle of ceremonial wine that had been intended to bless the E-Garden foundations. In a sudden flash of inspiration, the answer came to her. There was no time to question whether it was wise to put strain on her wrist; not when there was a man's life at stake.

She didn't have to wait long for an opening to make her move. Squall provided all the distraction she needed when, with the agility of a feline, he jumped off the platform, gunblade at the ready, and landed with a thud on the ground below to go after the shooter.

"Stay down," Quistis told the Archbishop. She grabbed the bottle of wine and leapt up into a standing position, breaking into a run. She ran all the way to the back of the platform and struck the bottle against the one of the metallic poles making up the structure that held the banners. The bottle shattered. In one swift move, she swung the razor-sharp half that remained in her hand at one of the banners.

The rich scarlet cloth came loose with a ripping sound, and Quistis yanked it free, taking it with her when she sprinted back to the podium. "Come on," she said, holding her hand out to the Archbishop. He hesitated only for a fraction of a second, before reaching out and wrapping a clammy hand around hers. She pulled him up and together, they made their way to the edge of the stage. Acting as quickly as she could before Squall's Protect faded, she swung the banner over the length of rope leading from the structure of the platform down to the construction site disguised as a projection screen.

"Hold on," she said, bundling her hands with as much fabric as she could on both ends of the banner. The Archbishop didn't need to be told twice; without hesitation this time around, he wrapped his arms around Quistis's neck. Quistis tugged on the banner once, just to test if the rope would hold under their combined weight. It felt secure and the fabric of the banner was sleek enough that friction shouldn't be a problem, but beyond that wild speculation, she had no idea what was going to happen.

_This would be a very good time to bank on any favour points you have with the Lord, Archbishop,_ she thought, and she held her breath, kicking off the edge of the platform.

For the shortest of moments, she felt the most wonderful sense of weightlessness. The rope held, and the banner, acting like a pulley wheel, careened them down its length. There was a _Pop! Pop! Pop! _ sound as they ripped apart the bindings of the festive lanterns in their wake, showering the square below with little colorful cubes. The moment was over as soon as Quistis felt the tightness of the Archbishop's arms straining her throat, leaving her gasping for air. He was a generally frail-looking man, but right now, it was as if his weight had been magnified a hundredfold and it was all resting over her windpipe. She clenched her teeth, yelling at herself inwardly that it would be over soon, that they were speeding down fast, and she tightened her grip on the banner.

So distracted was she in maintaining her concentration and not letting go, that the sudden contact of her feet with the thick sheet of the projection screen caught her unawares. The fabric protested under their combined wait for a split second, until it gave in with a harsh rip and the two were ushered into the construction site. The moment she felt her boots touch solid ground, Quistis released the banner, and along with the Archbishop, they fell in a tangle onto the concrete floor below.

A cloud of dust, cement and Hyne knew what else went up and slowly settled as they came to a stop. Quistis could finally breathe again. She was bruised all over, no doubt, but the lungful of air she hurried to take quelled any and all aches for just a second. Next to her, the Archbishop struggled to sit up. She had taken the bulk of the damage from the collision, but he bore no few scrapes on his face and hands either. His hair and clothes were coated in white, and Quistis was certain she looked no different, but he appeared to be unharmed.

"Are you all right, your Eminence?" Quistis asked in between pants, massaging her throat. She felt something trickle down her forehead as she spoke. She was already aching all over, and the searing pain from her wrist told her she was most likely in for an earful courtesy of Dr. Kadowaki, but she was not severely wounded either.

The Archbishop ran his hands over his face, looking as though he might burst out laughing. The adrenaline rush he was undoubtedly feeling could have very well been the first he had ever experienced. The thick sheets running down the building's length were keeping them well out of sight for the moment, but Quistis felt only slightly more secure than when she had felt up on the platform. The man seemed to be labouring under the misapprehension that he was now perfectly safe.

"That was…" he wheezed, grinning from ear-to-ear. "The shot—terrifying. I thought for sure—but then you came along and—" he panted, trying to make sense of what had just happened. There were traces of an Esthari accent in his voice, something Quistis's hadn't noticed during his speech. He was clearly so overwhelmed that he wasn't making a conscious effort to speak Balamese as fluently as he usually did. "I've never felt so—" he began anew, still smiling like a child, until he turned to look at her. His face fell. "Oh, dear. You're bleeding!"

Quistis reached up to her forehead where he had just looked. Indeed, she caught a thin stream of warm blood just as it reached her brow. She could barely even feel a wound up there, but blood was now freely flowing down past her nose.

The Archbishop, obviously not used to the sight of blood, blanched and hurried to remove his stole. "Here, please," he said, pressing it against her head.

"It's all right," Quistis said, wincing as she felt pressure on the wound. She tried not to think just how much the little piece of regalia she was currently bleeding upon cost. "I'm not hurt badly; head wounds bleed a lot, that's all. More importantly, we have to—"

"QUISTIS?"

Both Quistis and the Archbishop jumped at the sound of the disembodied voice. It sounded quite far away, and Quistis guessed the voice she recognized as Zell's was coming from one of the floors below. They had no way of reaching him since no stairs had been built yet, so it was a big relief to know they had been found; she wasn't even carrying a simple Float to get them both down safely.

"We're here!" she called as loud as she could. "A few floors above."

"Hold on!" Zell shouted. "We'll get you out of there in a jiff. Are you hurt? Or you, your… Honor… ship?"

"We're fine, Zell," Quistis called back. "Is the square secure?"

"Not yet," Zell said. "It was fucking chaos out here for a while, but it's clearing out."

Quistis had half a mind to admonish Zell for using such language in the presence or the Archbishop, but he didn't look affronted in the least.

"We have this place surrounded though, don't worry!" Zell went on. "We can get you out while the police and some of our men handle the situation," he said. "YO, I found them!" he yelled, obviously speaking to someone else. His last shout was followed by the sound of retreating footsteps as he went to get help.

Quistis let her back fall against a concrete beam behind her, breathing a sigh of relief. It was only once she heard the distant voices of the SeeD crew working to help them out of the construct that she relaxed completely, and saw that her hand was entwined with that of the smiling man beside her.

* * *

"Turn around," Seifer ordered.

Reluctantly, the suspect did so. Upon closer inspection, Seifer became convinced that he was right; he had seen that face before.

"Do you know who I am?" Seifer asked, his arm unwavering.

The man said nothing, nor did he move.

"I know you understand me," Seifer said. "You understood enough to turn around when I told you so. So answer me."

The suspect did nothing but stare at him.

"What's you name?"

Silence once again.

"I know you know who I am. And I know you didn't just _happen_ to be here today," Seifer said, advancing on the man. "What I don't know, is why. So I'll make it simple for you: either tell me now and you'll be treated fairly, or stay silent and you will find out exactly how I'm going to make you talk."

It was a fairly decent threat, if Seifer said so himself, completely wasted on a man who was clearly not going to be convinced to talk. Resigned, he grabbed the suspect by the scruff of his jacket and forced him to face the wall.

"Hands behind your back," he told him.

The suspect didn't even try to fight back and simply did as he was told. Carrying no instrument to handcuff the man, Seifer could only make an attempt to draw from him and make sure he carried no spells. He also Silenced him for good measure, not missing the irony of the situation as he did so.

"Move it," Seifer said, motioning towards the road leading back to the square. "Keep your hands where they are and don't try anything; you'll regret it."

The man set off, but not before he gave Seifer one last look or pure loathing. His piercing blue eyes brought an unexpected, painful jog down memory lane.

They were very alike Squall's in color, and his gaze was identical to the proud insolence with which Squall had glared back at him, that day in D-District prison. The universe seemed determined to keep on piling up the guilt today, Seifer mused, as he kept his eyes on the man.

If there was a figurative list of things he was not proud of, torturing Squall would probably be in his top three. He had never deluded himself into thinking that confronting the ghosts of his past was going to be easy in the slightest, but he was certainly not prepared for the onslaught of remorse that had been hitting him wave after wave ever since day one.

Not for the first time since accepting Jonah's offer, Seifer was wishing he had stayed in Balamb, pissing his days away fishing, drinking beer, and basking in the sun.

* * *

The earful she had expected to get from Dr. Kadowaki came a little sooner, and from a far more sinister source, much to Quistis's dismay. No sooner had she been taken aside to receive first aid for her injuries, than Selphie had popped out of nowhere.

With the square mostly cleared out, the shooter under custody of the Esthari police and the Archbishop whisked away by his own personal guard, there was little for her to do other than pester Quistis into insanity.

"He's a man of the cloth, y'know."

Quistis turned around, rubbing the orange bandaid now marking her forehead. "Mmmm?"

"Archbishop Cutie," Selphie answered. "He can't really date anyone. Sworn to chastity and all."

"I know," Quistis said, a little too defensively.

"I know you know. I'm just worried about that grin you had on earlier," Selphie said.

"What grin?"

"The our-children-are-going-to-have-sandy-hair-and-hazel-eyes grin."

"Ooooh boy," Quistis said, letting out a sigh. It was very like Selphie to stretch the truth to a breaking point. Quistis couldn't deny she had let her imagination go into overdrive for a few moments, but she had done little other than daydream about things she already knew were impossible. _Pretty much the whole point of daydreaming,_ she thought. _Nothing wrong with a harmless little fantasy._

"You've got the whole savior thing going on for a first meeting and that's a pretty cool story and all, but you do realize this is as far as it goes, right?" Selphie went on, undeterred by Quistis's reaction.

"For Hyne's sake, I'm not an idiot. Can't you just let me enjoy this for a little while?"

"Enjoy what?" Selphie asked, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

"The fact that I actually got to meet someone I greatly admire, and that we even got to have a short, pleasant discussion," Quistis replied.

"A discussion?" Selphie said. "Meaning what, playing footsie under the rubble and muttering sweet nothings to each other?"

_Footsie under the-? _"Where on earth are you getting these ideas?" Quistis said, her voice getting a little shrill with anger. "There was nothing romantic about it; we just spoke for a bit until the rescue party arrived."

"And _then_ he said he wanted to talk to you in private after they're done patching him up," Selphie said pointedly. "What's _that_ all about? Why does he want to talk to you?"

"I don't know!" Quistis said, exasperated. "He probably wants to talk about the incident, maybe even wants to do the polite thing and thank me. But I'm sure your imagination has concocted something far more sinister," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"I'm not trying to rile you up," Selphie said, holding her hands up to placate Quistis. "I'm just concerned."

"About what, pray tell?"

"That you're setting yourself up for disappointment. You've had the hots for this guy-"

"I do not-!"

"—for months now, and at first it was cute and all since, c'mon, never gonna happen, but now that you've met... well... things could get messy."

_This is getting out of hand,_ Quistis thought. She knew that Selphie's mind was capable of making connections even where there were none whatsoever, but this kind of reaction was completely new. "Messy _how_?"

"I dunno... maybe meeting him in person refuelled your obsession-"

"I am _not_ obsessed!" Quistis hissed, by now worried that someone might be listening in and draw all the wrong conclusions, much like Selphie had.

"I know you're usually pretty grounded, but I dunno... lately you've been a bit emotional and I'm starting to think it's clouding your judgment," Selphie went on.

"_Clouding my judgment_? My judgment on what, whether to engage in conversation with the man I just rescued? Seriously, where is this coming from?"

"Well, for starters, it isn't like you to go along with Rinoa's plans," Selphie replied, looking as serious as Quistis had ever seen her.

Her expression was the kind she wore only when she dealt with matters very close to her heart, like the destruction of T-Garden. Though often seen as an airhead, Quistis knew no-one else who could be as painfully honest and brutal as Selphie was when it came to things that truly mattered.

"She's my friend and I love her, but she's not the best strategist in the world," Selphie went on, referring to Rinoa. "This plan of hers, with the uniform and all that was fun, I'll admit, but never in a million years did I think you'd go along with it."

"Why not?"

"Because it was stupid, irresponsible and reckless."

Quistis let out a long sigh, burying her face in her hands.

"It's pretty much everything you're not," Selphie went on. "I went along with it because you looked so bummed out about not being able to be there at the ceremony, but I gotta tell you: I'm not liking this. The Quistis I know is a no-nonsense, empowered woman. Not a swooning schoolgirl."

At the sound of that characterization, Quistis looked up sharply, her eyes narrowing. "And the Selphie I know is a little more understanding and a lot less judgmental."

What hurt the most about Selphie's little speech was that Quistis was well aware of the fact that she was a stickler for rules. She liked having things done a certain way, and while it was true that she never took many risks, she never thought her friends saw her as someone so rigid and unimaginative that she couldn't even throw caution to the wind once in a while. It was one of the qualities Quistis had always envied in Rinoa.

The irony of the situation was that Rinoa herself had grown so tired of being seen as the flighty, irresponsible little Princess, that she was trying to do the exact opposite Quistis was now doing; she was injecting more and more discipline into her daily routine in an effort to be more like her friends and everyone else around her.

Though neither Quistis nor Rinoa wanted to admit it, Selphie, despite the many misconceptions surrounding her bubbly personality, was the most balanced of all three girls. She knew how to have fun, she had a wild imagination, she was quick-witted enough to be able to improvise when needed, but she never crossed the line where her work was concerned.

"I can be a bitch when my friend's welfare is at stake," Selphie said, probably realizing she had hurt Quistis's feelings. She looked sorry for the outcome, but she was not backing down. "I don't wanna see you crushed, Quisty."

"The concern is appreciated, but I assure you, I have no expectations," Quistis said, and that much was true. No matter what her own imagination had come up with, she knew perfectly well where to draw a line and how to keep from crossing it. "It's just an innocent fantasy, aren't I allowed one?"

"Of course you are," Selphie said, and her expression softened. She looked as if she felt genuinely bad for trodding all over what was one of her friend's few, and very rare daydreams. "Just be mindful of the teeny tiny line between fantasy and obsession."

"I'm not delusional."

"Good to know," Selphie said. Her facial features relaxed and by now, she was probably convinced she had talked some sense into Quistis, but her elation didn't last long. The moment she saw the person approaching them somewhat timidly, her expression shifted to that of someone who had just swallowed a whole lemon.

Archbishop Rachmanov, closely followed by two of the bulkiest bodyguards Quistis had ever laid eyes upon, now stood a few feet away from them. "Am I interrupting something?" he asked politely.

"Ye—"

Quistis grabbed hold of Selphie's shoulder and gave it a sharp squeeze. "No, not at all!" she said, and used the gesture as an excuse to help herself up to her feet.

If he had noticed something was wrong, the Archbishop was discreet enough not to show it. "I was wondering if we could have that private talk now," he said. "I need to get going soon, and-"

"Yes, of course," Quistis said, and made her way towards him. "I'm all done."

With a slight tilt of his head, the Archbishop dismissed the two bodyguards, apparently confident that Quistis was more than enough protection at that moment. As the two set off to find a more secluded area to talk, Quistis threw Selphie one last look over her shoulder.

Making eye-contact, she tried to convey an apology for the abrupt way she had just left. Selphie simply glared back, looking worried and furious.

* * *

By the time Seifer made it back to the square, he was more than a little shocked to find it looking so radically different.

There was a definite sense of uneasiness hanging in the air, punctuated by the absence of the crowd and the presence of police cars. The platform where Seifer had last seen the Archbishop was completely empty and thrashed; one of the banners that once hung upon the construct had been puzzlingly ripped apart and ceremonial lanterns now lay trampled on the square.

Only a few citizens remained, and Seifer noticed most of them were being questioned by police officers.

_Shit,_ he thought. Having the police interfere was the last thing he needed right now. If the Estharis realized there was a suspect being escorted back, they would claim authority over him and take him for questioning themselves before Seifer could get anything out of him.

"Walk calmly and bring your hands to the front," Seifer whispered into the man's ear. "Any funny business and I'll gut you, cops or no cops."

The suspect slowed his pace, doing as he was told and began to walk alongside Seifer. The willingness to accept any and all orders was starting to puzzle Seifer somewhat, but he showed no signs of worry on the outside.

He began to head towards the SeeDs he could spot in the distance, hoping nothing would happen until he reached them. The entire SeeD team, he saw, was assembled in the southeast side of the plaza, packing up equipment into the six vans awaiting. Next to them, a SeeD and an Esthari guard were receiving medical attention on the back of a stopped ambulance.

Upon closer inspection, Seifer was even more surprised to see that the SeeD was Selphie Tilmitt and the guard was Quistis Trepe.

_What the hell?_

In the midst of it all stood Squall, pacing back and forth irritably as he barked orders at his subordinates. He looked as though he was one step away from screaming bloody murder.

"…AND SOMEONE FIND ME SEIFER ALMASY!"

_Geez, could you be more of a drama queen?_ Seifer thought with a roll of his eyes, as he approached the squadron. "Right behind you," he said in a drawl, resisting the urge to simply tap Squall's shoulder.

Squall turned around sharply and came face to face with Seifer. His anger seemed to take a temporary pause upon seeing that he wasn't alone.

"Who is this?" he asked, looking at the other man.

"Suspect I arrested," Seifer replied, and looked around at the bizarre mess surrounding them. "What happened here?"

"Assassination attempt," Squall said, gritting his teeth in frustration. He, too, was sweeping the scene, no doubt worried over how quickly things had turned from smooth to front-page-on-tomorrow's-papers material.

There were only two likely candidates as targets for the assassination attempt, Seifer thought: the President and the Archbishop. Seifer's first guess would have been the President, but even with the exchange he had witnessed between him and the Commander the other day, he figured Squall would have been a little more distressed if someone had tried to kill his father. At the moment, he looked more aggravated than worried. "The Archbishop?" Seifer asked.

Squall nodded. "The gunner has been arrested. What did _he_ do?" he asked, eyeing the man accompanying Seifer once more.

Whether the suspect was surprised to hear the turn of events or not, it was impossible to say. Even under Squall's intense scrutiny, he remained dispassionate and silent, as if the situation unfolding before his eyes and everything that was about to follow did not concern him in the least bit.

The conversation between them was already garnering the attention of all SeeD on-lookers, Seifer realized. His own team wisely made no attempt to approach them, but he could see their jaws clench nervously upon recognition of the man, just as Rhys had done earlier. Leaning closer to Squall, Seifer whispered, "In private," and motioned the Commander aside with a slight jerk of his head. "Keep an eye on him," he announced to the rest of the SeeDs. "He's not carrying any spells and he has been Silenced, but he is to be considered dangerous."

Squall arched an eyebrow at that. His expression plainly stated that he didn't appreciate Seifer dishing out orders like that, but he let it go nonetheless and stepped away to a more private spot to speak with his subordinate.

Seifer came to a stop a few feet away from the rest of the squadron, where he was certain they weren't going to be overheard. "All right..." he began, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "I know you're going to ask questions, but I'm telling you right now: I can't answer most of them."

Squall mirrored his position. "Can't or won't?" he asked, brow knit.

"A little bit of both," Seifer conceded, grunting.

"And that shouldn't make me suspicious?"

"I'm under contract, I can't-"

"You're under contract with _me_," Squall interjected, jabbing a finger at his chest. "You answer to _me_-"

"It's a client, Puberty Boy," Seifer spat back. Squall's childish tantrum was enough to make Seifer forget, even fleetingly, that the old nicknames were taboo against a man who was now his superior. "One I was hired by long before I joined your little band or merry men. You're a SeeD, you know client-SeeD confidentiality cannot be breached under most circumstances."

"Are you telling me you abandoned your post to run off and take care of an _errand_?" Squall asked in a low voice, his frown darkening.

"Are you gonna let me explain or not?" Seifer said, running a hand through his hair in exasperation.

"…Explain."

Seifer didn't care for the contempt in the other man's voice, but the annoying little voice in the back of his mind that lately had the baritone timbre of Jonah Meric willed him to let it go. He wasn't going to give away more than he had to about his work in G-Garden, but he grudgingly decided to give Squall a version of the facts as close to the truth as possible. "We've been working for this bloke for months now," he began. "Don't ask me who he is, because I have no idea. Hell, I don't even know if it's a man-"

Squall held up a hand to silence him. "Get to the point," he said, clearly not in the mood for the full account of the story.

Clenching his jaw, Seifer went on. "Our investigation reached a dead end in Trabia. This was on the _exact_ same day as the Council meeting in Centra. After that, I came here and didn't look any further into what had happened in that last mission. Then today, I see _this_ guy. I recognize him. He's one of the men I was after in Trabia," Seifer narrated.

Upon hearing that last piece of information, Squall's face registered the slightest of shocks, Seifer was pleased to see. He had piqued his interest, at the very least, making what he was planning on asking far easier.

"A secondary team searched the whole damn globe for these men and I just so happen to find one of them here, where I'm on a mission, on a day when the Archbishop was nearly murdered from what you told me," Seifer said, fixing Squall with a hard look. "What would _you_ have done?"

The Commander remained silent for a long time. Seifer assumed he was trying to find the best possible way to acknowledge the absurdity of the situation without accepting the fact that he would have done the same. Seifer's assumption wasn't far off the mark. "Awfully big coincidence," Squall eventually said.

"Exactly," Seifer agreed, nodding.

"Did you get anything out of him?" Squall asked, apparently having already forgotten all about Seifer's misdemeanor. There was a slightly hungry look in his eyes as he glanced back towards the suspect, one that Seifer recognized: he was excited. Excited that something new and unexpected had come up, something that promised to heave the SeeD organization out of its stupor.

"No," Seifer replied. "He refuses to speak and I'm willing to bet that when he does, it's gonna be in Trabian."

"And you don't speak Trabian," Squall said, in what Seifer felt deserved one tenth of a brownie point for stating the _completely fucking obvious_.

"I know_ hello_, _goodbye_ and _shit_. I'm not sure I can be of much help," he said with a wry grin. "He understands Balamese, though. Maybe even speaks it, I dunno, but he won't cooperate easily."

"You said he was on your suspect files. What else do you know about him?"

"I'll ask Jonah to fax you the whole profile once I get back," Seifer said.

"Good. Have you notified the Esthari authorities yet?" Squall asked, giving him an odd look, as if his sentiments on the whole issue were going to be decided upon that very answer.

"Are you nuts? So they can yank him right out of our hands and fuck it all up?" Seifer said. "I wanted to hear what he had to say first."

Squall nodded and gave him a look of grudging approval; it seemed that Seifer had passed the unspoken test. "So do I," he said.

"What should I do with him?" Seifer asked, pointing towards the SeeD vans where the suspect was being watched over. He was taking a bit of a risk by assuming that he had the authority to take care of the matter himself, but Squall didn't challenge it.

"Take him back to Garden," he ordered. "Once we've heard all we need to know, we'll release him into Esthari custody."

Having been granted what he had been after all along –some alone time with the suspect- Seifer decided to play the part of the dutiful soldier a little longer. It was no small wound on his pride when he nodded to Squall and said, in a voice very unlike his own, "I'll get right on it." He gave Squall a salute for good measure.

Squall returned the salute. "Good job," he said, and turned his heel to return to the rest of his men.

Seifer was left watching his departing form and muttering a brief "Thanks," at the compliment. He wasn't alone for long though, as Jack Gonzalo hurried up to him after Squall's departure, looking bewildered.

"What the hell is going on?" he hissed at Seifer. "Rhys said-"

"Yep. Here's our missing link," Seifer said, slipping his hands in his pockets. His eyes were still on Squall as he spoke.

"And you just handed him over to Leonhart. How wise is that?" Jack said, in a tone Seifer recognized as barely contained exasperation.

"_Very_ unwise. But if we want to be able to work in Balamb Garden freely, he needs to trust us," Seifer explained. "So I told him exactly what he needed to hear to keep this quiet from the Esthari authorities."

"This is all fine and good, but I don't think he trusts you enough to let _you_ interrogate him," Jack reasoned.

"True. I'll need a permit to access the brig."

"And exactly how do you plan on getting one?"

Seifer didn't reply, but simply turned to look at Jack knowingly.

The message was understood. "Time to trespass some digital borders?" he asked.

"Indeed," Seifer said. "It won't be smooth sailing though. Squall knows he's not getting the whole story, I could tell. He's planning something," he said, and his gaze fell upon the distant form of the Commander once again.

"How do you know?"

Seifer let out a chuckle at that. "He told me I did a good job." _Too much, Squall,_ he thought. _Well-played up till that part, but no cigar._

"So what do we do?" Jack asked.

"Be prepared for obstacles. He might be monitoring the database, the hallways leading to the brig, I dunno," Seifer said. He suspected Squall was already keeping tabs on everyone, and what was worse, they were operating on his territory; he had the upper hand and it would be near impossible to prepare for any and all situations. Their best chance at a private talk with the suspect was if they made their move before Squall did. "It's best if we work fast so we don't give him much time to react. Get on it. I want to talk to this man before Squall has time to organize anything. And I'll need Felix to translate."

"Got it."

"Go."

* * *

"I'm afraid this is as far as I'm allowed to stray," said the Archbishop, smiling. They had had but a few minutes of private time, during which he did nothing but thank Quistis over and over again and she tried her best to assure him that she had done nothing but her duty.

Quistis came to a stop next to him. A few feet ahead, there was a limousine parked. It was a gleaming white vehicle with the distinct two-headed eagle of the Hynean Church emblazoned on the back. The two bodyguards she had seen earlier now stood by the open door. They were dressed in impeccable black suits and ties, and they both looked able to snap a neck like a twig using only thumb and forefinger.

They reminded Quistis of Raijin, but it was only in build. Despite all the bulk and muscle, Raijin had a gentle, amiable face. These men did not.

One of them made a move to approach Quistis and the Archbishop, but the latter held up a hand to wordlessly ask him to stay back. The man nodded and returned to his previous position. He didn't look displeased, but kept his eyes fixed upon Quistis, watching her like a hawk. She was certain that at the first sign of suspicious movement, both men would be upon her like vultures on a carcass.

"They look... capable," Quistis commented, forcing a grin on her face.

"They are," the Archbishop said, chuckling. "I know they mean well and are only doing as ordered, but sometimes I wish they'd respect my privacy a little more."

Quistis could relate to that sentiment. Though she did not have an armed guard following her at all times –not that she needed one, she knew what it felt like to be put under public scrutiny and have her life examined from all possible angles by complete strangers.

"I can imagine. Still, it's a relief to know I'm leaving you in good hands," she said.

She had no desire to be rid of his company. Her fervent wish had not only come true, but reality had exceeded her wildest expectations; she had met and spoken to Archbishop Rachmanov, an event she was sure she would remember for the rest of her life.

Sadly, an influential man such as himself had far more important business to attend to, and, not wanting to intrude and take up more of his time, Quistis decided it was time to say her goodbye.

"It was a great honor meeting you, Your Eminence," she said, bowing her head respectfully.

"The honor is all mine, SeeD Trepe," the Archbishop said, reciprocating with a gentle tilt of his head. "Thank you again for your timely rescue. Hyne was indeed looking over my shoulder today when he sent such a skilled soldier to protect me."

Quistis blushed, still unable to shake off the feeling of elation from having an actual conversation with a man she had admired for so long. "You flatter me," she said demurely.

"Oh, I'd never even dream of trying to flatter such a shrewd woman as yourself, SeeD Trepe," he said. "Flattery only suits vapid women and craven men. I speak the truth."

"…Quistis," she blurted out.

"Excuse me?"

"It's… Quistis," she repeated, emboldened by the fact that he did not look insulted. "You can call me Quistis. As opposed to SeeD Trepe, Your Excellency."

As she had hoped, the Archbishop didn't appear to be offended at all. Instead, a look of pleasant surprise spread upon his features, and he returned the smile. "Agreed. Just as long as you call me Sethior."

"Oh, no!" Quistis hurried to say. "I wouldn't dare—I didn't ask you so I could—"

"Please?" he asked. "No-one calls me by my given name lately. I fear I might get used to such titles and forget my humble origins, who I truly am," he added, and his plea sounded so honest, so heartfelt, that Quistis could do nothing but accept.

"Of course… Sethior," she said with a little hesitation, marveling at how wonderfully inappropriate that sounded leaving her lips.

"Thank you, my friend," the Archbishop said, smiling again. "That is, if you would allow me the privilege to consider you a friend?"

"I would be honored."

"As would I. I want to properly thank you for today's events, but I'm afraid my schedule forbids me to do so for a while."

"You are visiting the major cities in all continents, I hear?" Quistis asked.

"I am. But once I return to Esthar, I look forward to seeing you again, if that would be possible. I understand it is going be difficult to correspond with you on a regular basis?" he asked. "Your academy rarely ever remains stationary, does it?"

"That's true. Although we do make stops for supplies often. Families are notified ahead of time to know where to address their mail."

"I see. Should I expect the same treatment? So I know where to reach you."

Quistis was all too happy to oblige. "Of course. But I think it would be just as hard to reach you, am I right?"

"My assistant will provide all the information you need," the Archbishop said. "I'm afraid I'm not carrying a card or anything of the sort with contact information, but you can reach him at the Presidential palace tomorrow, if that's not too much of a chore for you. Ask for Nexxarius Zittnick, he'll be expecting you," he said. "So, can I hope to meet with you again when I return?"

"It's a date-" Quistis began, but once she realized what she had just uttered, she felt her face burn. "I mean- Yes, the date is... set... we can-" _Oh Hyne, what am I saying?_

The Archbishop laughed good-naturedly. "I understand what you meant. Farewell, my friend."

"Farewell, your-" Quistis began, before remembering their earlier agreement. "Sethior."

"Until we meet again," he said, and reached out for her hand. Gently, he held on to her fingertips and brought her hand up to his lips.

Under any other circumstances, Quistis would have appreciated the irony of receiving the treatment that was usually bestowed upon himself. However, at the moment, she was in such a state of shock and euphoria that all she could register was the fact that a handsome, respectable man was being genuinely chivalrous, without the slightest hint of hypocrisy, as far as she could tell.

She felt the fine hair at her nape stand on end when he kissed her hand, a sentiment she hadn't experienced in years. Without lifting his head up completely, the Archbishop -_Sethior_, looked up to lock his eyes upon hers. "Quistis," he added, smiling.

Enraptured, she watched as he stepped away and made his way to the limousine. Her gaze never moved an inch, not even when the door closed behind him. She was only just beginning to regain her grasp on reality when she saw the window roll down, and Sethior gave her one last radiant smile and a parting wave.

It was long before she felt her feet touch the ground again.

* * *

"We're all set up here," Irvine said, approaching Squall.

The Commander set down his coffee-filled thermos and nodded to Irvine. All SeeD equipment had been packed away. The square was now nearly empty; the Esthari police had finally left the scene a while ago and there was now only a small crew of technicians who remained, working on dismantling the platforms and taking down the remaining decorations. There were no civilians whatsoever to be found anywhere in the plaza.

"Good," Squall said. "Load everyone up and head back."

"We're one van short," Irvine began, looking a little apprehensive. "Seifer and his men just-"

"I asked him to take the suspect back to Garden."

"Oh... Good," Irvine said, relief spreading on his face. It was clear that he had been expecting Squall to be unaware of this incident. "I thought... Anyway, never mind. What are we gonna do about the shooter?"

"Nothing," said Squall, grimacing in distaste. There was nothing else they _could_ do, much to his dismay.

He had taken down the man himself, but it had all happened in plain view of thousands of people, including all police officers in the square. The arrest fell under their jurisdiction. The SeeDs had done what they'd been hired to do: protect the President and –albeit unofficially- the Archbishop.

Normally, Squall wouldn't have cared about the outcome and would have simply moved on. However, Seifer's discovery had changed everything. Loathe though he was to admit it, Seifer had been right to suspect something was amiss, something perhaps far bigger than they realized.

Mercenaries weren't meant to question, they were but instruments so the powers that be could orchestrate their plans hidden from the public eye. Conscience was a leave-at-the-door quality for a SeeD: tolerated, but certainly not required. Squall had struggled for years to be rid of his, only to witness it make a fierce comeback during the Second Sorceress War. Perhaps it was the circumstances that had convinced him to get involved, as it was his very home that had been at stake, but he found that it was nearly impossible to ignore injustice anymore.

_"__I want you all to be able to think and act for yourselves,"_ Cid had told them after the Dollet exam in what seemed like a thousand years ago.

_What were you thinking, _Squall mentally admonished Cid. _Teaching mercenaries to grow a conscience?_ It was easier to think of his victims as simple obstacles, collateral damage, numbers on his death count. But now every single one of them was fighting in his head for the right to a name. He didn't want them to have names; it made them too real to deal with. It made him care too much.

"There's something I need you to do before you return to Garden," Squall said.

"Name it," said Irvine.

"I have two SeeDs waiting to escort the suspect to the brig," he explained. "I want you to find Zell fill him in on what happened. Tell him to accompany them and conduct a primary interrogation himself. Don't let Seifer get anywhere near the cell until that happens."

Irvine frowned. "Why?"

"He thinks I don't know it's what he wanted all along," he said, a hint of a smirk on his lips. The fact that Seifer had chosen to divulge as much as he had –assuming everything he'd said was even true, was suspicious enough on its own. When coupled with his surprising obedience and respectful conduct, it screamed _Danger!_

"Him and his men are still under contract with a client in Galbadia and this man is their missing link in a failed mission," Squall went on. "Seifer wants a chance to talk to him alone. He's going to try to find a way into the brig, and I want him to think he has us all fooled."

"And then what?"

"Then we listen in on their conversation."

"You think he's hiding something from us," Irvine said.

"I _know_ he's hiding something. And I plan on finding out what that is."

"Right… Get Zell to the brig, and try to fool Seifer into thinking he fooled us. What are you gonna do?"

"I have to go to the palace," Squall said, and his enthusiasm at plotting against Seifer quickly vanished once he was reminded of the errand he had to run. It was an obnoxious formality as far as he was concerned, but one he was expected to carry out. "I'm picking up Rinoa and making sure the President—well… he owes us a check," he finished. He was hoping for a chance to see Ellone as well, since they had barely spoken that morning, but he didn't voice that additional thought.

"Right," Irvine said, in a tone that suggested he wasn't quite convinced this was the truth, and gave Squall the one-over. "Well, I'd better get going then. See you back home in…?"

"Less than an hour," Squall said. He wasn't planning on staying longer than he had to.

* * *

The sharp ring of the phone woke her up with a start.

She opened her eyes, meeting only stark darkness when she did. Teetering on the fine line between the state of dreaming and being awake, she wondered which reality the phone ring belonged to. Was she still dreaming, or had she awakened? Was it night time indeed or would she wake up to find that it was daylight instead? If this was a dream, why did she feel old and weary like she always did, and not young and vibrant like she was in most of her dreams?

A heartbeat sounded somewhere out there. Every beat was in perfect sync with the dull throbbing in her temple. _Thump, thump, thump._

In the background, undeterred by her delirious musings, the phone continued to ring.

With a long-drawn sigh, she decided to indulge the notion that this was reality and see what happened. She reached out for the nightstand by the bed. Having spent so long trying to get her bearings, her eyes were now used to the darkness and she had no trouble making out the shape of the bedside lamp.

The moment she pushed the on button, illumination came along with the light. This was real, she had woken up. Reminders of what had transpired in this room before earlier on were scattered all over, like clues leading up to the mystery of the few hours she seemed to have lost before sleep claimed her. The smell and sight of the burnt leaves hit both respective senses at once. She couldn't really see how she had ignored their overwhelming scent for so long. It was as if being unaware of their presence had made her immune to the pungent smell, but now that she had seen the bowl of crushed, burnt—

"The phone," she croaked out loud. There. If she hadn't spoken up, she would have gotten lost in her own ramblings once more.

_That is one persistent caller,_ she thought, wondering just how long the phone had been screaming for her attention. She fell back on the soft pillows, and searched blindly for the phone on the nightstand.

Her fingers closed around the slim black device and she brought it to her ear, answering the call. "Hello?"

_"Was it you?"_

The caller didn't identify himself, but he didn't need to. The gruff, baritone voice was very familiar to her. "Jonah?" she asked, though she didn't have to wonder; it only now occurred to her that he was the only one who knew this number. "Why are you calling at this hour, did something happen?"

_"What do you mean, at this hour? It's not even noon in Esthar."_

She blinked and held the cell phone out in front of her. The clock read 11:30 am. _The blinds. That's why it's so dark in here. I closed the-_

_"Was. It. You?"_

"What on earth are you talking about?"

_"It's all over the news. The attempted murder."_

"Attempted-?" The shocking news were enough to pull her out of her reverie for good. "What happened, who-?"

_"Rachmanov."_

"They tried to kill Rachmanov? When?"

_"A few hours ago. He was giving a speech in Esthar."_

She bit her lip. "I swear, I had nothing to do with this. My people would never-"

_"So it is a coincidence that you were in Esthar the exact same day this happened?"_

The accusation stung her like a slap across the face. There was a long pause before she was in sufficient control of herself and could speak again. "You know why I was in Esthar. _You_ arranged it. But I was not involved in the attack. The fact that you would even consider that..."

He seemed to realize his blunder once she reminded him of the facts. _"...I'm sorry."_

"You're forgiven," she said, her tone rigid, but she truly had forgiven him. Jonah had always had that particular weakness: anger and panic clouded his judgement, if only for a little while.

_"I'm wondering though, how could you possibly not have heard about the attack? The whole city was in an uproar today."_

"I wasn't in the city. I was with-"

_"Oh, right, I forgot."_

"So... Let me guess, meeting him is out of the question."

_"Not after what happened today, I'm sorry."_

She sighed. Always something in the way. "I understand. Do you have any idea who was behind the attack?"

_"I was hoping you would."_

"Send me any information you can gather and I'll see what I can do," she said. "You should know though: some of the others aren't quite so... peace-friendly as we are. I wouldn't be surprised if the culprit ends up being among them."

_"I know that. Looks like you've got your hands full as well."_

"They'll come around. Many already have."

_"I hope so. Are you being cautious?"_

"Always."

_"Good, that's... good to know__."_

She smiled. "I always forget what a softie you truly are. You can't really blame me, though; when you accuse me of attempted murder-"

_"I said I was sorry."_

"I know, I know."

_"Did you, uhh... A week ago was, y'know-"_

"I visited him, yes. I don't want to talk about it," she said, rubbing her temple with two fingers.

_"I shouldn't have brought it up, I'm sorry."_

"It's all right. Just do me a favor?"

_"Name it."_

"Watch over Seifer. It was his dying wish. If anything were to happen to him-"

_"I already am. I promised you, didn't I?"_

"I know. And I'm grateful. I'm just scared, that's all. Things have been relatively calm so far, but from what you just told me, they won't be for long."

_"He's safe. My men know what they're up against; they'll come through."_

"I hope so."


	10. Chapter 9: In Illo Tempore

**DISCLAIMER: **Don't own a single thing you recognize.

**A/N:** OK, wow, was this a busy month writing-wise for me. The chapter could have been up about two weeks ago, but I decided to postpone it until I was done with everything and could post it all en masse. Please don't ignore the block of text that follows, as it contains information concerning the story and this chapter in particular (sorry it's so huge). If you started reading this story after October 4th 2010, feel free to skip to the 5th paragraph.

First things first: this chapter is dedicated to the a-w-e-s-o-m-e people over at the SeiferxQuistis community on livejournal (the link to which can be found in Ms Starlight's profile, who in turn can be found under my list of favorite authors). I posed a question to them a while back, and the response I got opened my eyes to tons of details and actual canon facts I had no idea existed. As such, I decided to alter a few things in my story to comply with canon. Not to worry, nothing has truly changed plot-wise.

With that in mind, I also went back to edit some of these details into chapters 1-6 and give them an overall edit as well. I'm usually against that, as I like having visible proof of my progress, so I avoided doing any heavy duty re-writing. There are no new scenes, just corrections here and there (mostly POV discrepancies since I had the bad habit of switching from character to character within the same scene) and a few minor additions. Certain POV switches couldn't be resolved without completely changing the pace and feel of a scene, so I reluctantly left some of them in.

To save you the trouble of re-reading the whole thing, I have made notes of what has changed in each chapter. Scroll down to the very bottom of the page on every chapter, and there will be a section in the closing A/N in bold, explaining what is different.

Finally, a few explanations on the nature of this chapter. I decided to use this chapter to tell my version of what happened immediately post-war to all our heroes. Seifer's scenes are part one of how he and Jonah came to work together. The rest will be posted at a later time, but definitely not in the next chapter. To avoid confusion, only the last scene takes place in the present, meaning right after the end of chapter 8. You'll know it's the last one when you see the year '4999' on the timestamp. To make sense of the timestamps, bear in mind that in my story, the game ended on mid-May 4997 M.G. and the war lasted a whole year.

Also, Seifer swears in this chapter. A lot. And he's being a jerk. A lot. You have been warned xD

That's all. Sorry again for the extra-long A/N and I hope you enjoy this chapter!

* * *

**Chapter 9:** In Illo Tempore

* * *

_"What does a scanner see? Into the head? Down into the heart? _

_Does it see into me? Into us? Clearly or darkly? _

_I hope it sees clearly, because I can't any longer see into myself. _

_I see only murk. I hope, for everyone's sake, the scanners do better. _

_Because if the scanner sees only darkly, the way I do, _

_then I'm cursed and cursed again and will only wind up dead this way, _

_knowing very little and getting that little fragment wrong, too." _

_**- Bob Arctor, 'A Scanner Darkly'**_

_**

* * *

**_

_**July 26**__**th**__** 4997 M.G.**_

_**Balamb City, Balamb**_

"There's time. Ship leaves in two days, so you can still change your mind, ya know?"

Seifer squeezed the empty beer can in his hand and tossed it right into the wastebasket nearby. "Thanks, but no thanks," he said.

Fujin turned to look at Raijin once and then shifted her gaze back to Seifer. "WHY?"

Seifer leaned against the barrel behind his back, sighing. He couldn't even begin to fully explain why he wouldn't join them. These few months they had spent together in Balamb had probably been the best and worst of his life. They never discussed the war, or how they had parted; it was as if their posse had never broken, as if the past year didn't exist.

They never even asked any questions when he woke up at nights, his shirt soaked in sweat and his face painted scarlet from the nosebleeds. All they did was take care of him patiently, respecting his wish not to see a doctor. When morning came, there was no mention of those incidents, and they happily went on about their day, working, laughing, going out for beers or fishing.

Despite the good times they had together, Seifer knew they were getting restless. The jobs they held in Balamb were enough to pay for their small apartment, but they weren't enough to satisfy their need for action. The itch was there, and Seifer felt it, too. He would have gone with them to the ends of the world in search of adventure. Anywhere, except the one place they were going.

When they'd announced Edea's offer, Seifer had given the two of them a warm smile. He'd wished them a good trip, told them he wouldn't be able to follow, and left the apartment to go fishing, giving them time alone to pack. It took ten minutes for them to track him down by the docks, and they were currently trying to get him to change his mind.

"Edea is starting to get her life back on track," Seifer replied. "She doesn't need me there messing things up for her."

Fujin scowled and crossed her arms in front of her chest. Venting her frustrations with a kick was her signature move, but it was usually poor Raijin who was the recipient of her anger. Apparently, it was now finally his turn. "IDIOT!"

"OW!" Seifer yowled, reaching for his shin and rubbing it furiously. "What the _fuck_, Fuj?"

She turned to Raijin and cocked her head sharply toward Seifer. "EXPLAIN."

"Fujin's right, ya know?" Raijin said, mirroring her stance and folding his arms as well. "Don't be an idiot. Edea wants you there. If she didn't, she wouldn't have asked, ya know?"

Seifer toyed with the handle on the spinning reel of his rod, frowning. "Edea is too naïve some times. If more people said no to her from time to time, she might actually grow a brain," he said bitterly.

As soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted them. He didn't really mean to speak ill of a person who had been nothing but kind to him, and who he cared about deeply, but her persistence was getting on his nerves. _Doesn't she get it? We can't be near each other again, ever,_ he thought. _Am I the only one who can see that? How can she be so irresponsible?_

In addition to his own guilt over what he had said, Seifer knew there would be retaliation from the other two as well. He had half-expected another kick from Fujin, but it was Raijin who reacted first.

"That's not cool, man," he said, shaking his head in disbelief. "There aren't a lot of people out there who are as kind as Edea, ya know? She cares about you, and this is how you talk about her?"

Seifer turned to stare at the ocean straight ahead. He couldn't face either of them right now. "I'm sorry, but it's true. If this is what you want, go. I won't follow you, but we'll still keep in touch, we can-"

Fujin didn't stay to hear the rest. She let out a huff and marched off the pier without so much as a glance at Seifer. The blond watched her go, sighing.

Raijin looked like he had half a mind to follow her, but Seifer figured he must've looked so pitiful that he decided to take a seat on the pier next to him instead. "Seriously, why won't you come?" he asked. "I thought we were a posse again, ya know?"

Seifer stopped pretending he was fishing and set the pole aside at last. "Don't ask me that," he said, staring at the water. "I don't want to lie to you guys, so just don't ask, all right?"

"Was it something we did?" Raijin asked quietly.

"No," Seifer said, shaking his head. "I would follow you guys anywhere. I just can't come where you're going. Trust me, it would make everything harder. Deep down, Edea knows it, too, but she's too nice to let it stop her from asking me to go with you two."

Raijin swung his legs back and forth, frowning. "Is it... Does it have to do... with the nosebleeds?" he asked.

Seifer's shoulders tensed. This had never come up in conversation before and it was shocking to hear Raijin mention it, rather than Fujin who tended to be more inquiring. He didn't consider Raijin to be of inferior intelligence, but he _was_ a little slower on the uptake. The fact that he had even connected the two was quite a surprise.

He wanted to lie, he really wanted to avoid this and not to dump the weight on anyone else's shoulders, but he felt that if he did, Raijin and Fujin would cut him out of their lives for good. He owed them the truth, or at least part of it for everything they had done for him.

"Yes," Seifer admitted. "If... If I'm near her, it'll get worse. For her, too, I think."

Raijin nodded. "Okay. So we'll stay here-"

"No."

"—and we can leave Balamb. Maybe go to Trabia, ya know? Take up snowboard-"

"Raijin," Seifer said, raising his voice. "_No_. You can't put your lives on hold for me again. I let it happen once. Never again."

"Friends stick around for rough times, ya know?" Raijin insisted. "Me and Fuj-"

"Are too good and have too much potential to waste it washing my bloody shirts and sitting by my bedside all night long," Seifer cut him off. "As your friend, I'm asking you to do something for yourselves. I'm done dragging you down with me."

Raijin shook his head and forced a grin on his lips. Seifer could tell it was far from genuine. "Don't be so melodramatic, ya know?"

"I'm not. I'm being realistic," Seifer said. "This... _thing_, it'll pass. It's happening less and less often. I'll go see a doctor if it makes you feel better."

"No, you won't."

"I will," Seifer said. "I promise."

Seifer watched him as he thought it over, frowning. He wasn't certain if Raijin had believed him or not, but despite the promise, Seifer could see that Raijin knew as well as he did it would be futile. There was nothing a doctor could do for him right now. He doubted there was _anyone_ out there who could tell him how to fight this, but he _had_ been truthful; it was slowing down day by day.

"Won't be the same without you, ya know," Raijin said eventually, sighing.

"Yeah... Maybe our paths will cross again some day," Seifer said. "We can still visit each other. I don't want to cut off ties with you any more than you do. But this is something you have to do, and maybe I need some time to think about what _I'm_ going to do."

"You'd better," Raijin growled. "I mean it, man. If I come back to visit and find you still drinking beers and lazing around getting a tan all day long, I'm dragging you down to Centra with us."

Seifer chuckled. "Deal. You gonna tell Fuj I'm sorry? Explain everything?"

Raijin nodded.

"Thanks. You should probably go finish packing," Seifer said. "I won't be long. I'll help you out and we'll do something fun tonight and tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay."

There was defeat in Raijin's voice, as if he were certain they would never see each other again. Seifer didn't know if they would, but he was determined that letting them live their own life, even for a little while, would finally free them all.

"Hey, we're still a posse. Always will be," he said, holding out his fist.

Raijin looked at the fist, then at him, and instead of pumping it, like they always did, let out a shuddering breath and threw his massive arms around Seifer, drawing him into a hug.

The intensity of it made him cringe at first, but he didn't fight it, figuring this was a good way to say goodbye. They didn't hug, they never did, but if there was a time when it would be appropriate, it was right now.

Letting out a sigh, Seifer smiled and gave Raijin a pat on the back. _I'll miss you._

_

* * *

_

_**August 10**__**th**__** 4997 M.G.**_

_**Kaveria, Centra**_

"Possession? _Possession_? Do you _honestly_ expect me to address _my_ people, people who have suffered greatly from this war and now demand justice, and tell them all is forgiven because of a _completely_ unfounded claim of _Sorceress possession?_"

Cid removed his glasses and looked up at the incensed speaker, Orunitia Dorcas. "Yes," he said calmly.

Quistis winced at the uproar that followed this statement. It took a lot of bravado for someone to stand up before the International Alliance and speak so openly; her admiration of Cid had just now reached a new high.

She still felt a little intimidated to be present in such a high-brow affair. To be allowed entrance into the very building where the leaders of all nations deliberated on matters that affected the whole planet was humbling, to say the least. The end of the war had not only brought an influx of beasts, but global confusion as well.

Their world was still a place very much broken, and it would take time before any modicum of order and true peace was restored. Citizens were still in the dark over how exactly the war had ended; Sorceress possession, time compression and even magic, something so ordinary and usual in the SeeD world, was foreign to the average man. The after-effects of the last Lunar Cry were still a threat to their lands, and even if their preconceptions of mercenaries had somewhat faded in the wake celebration, it wouldn't be long before they returned.

As a SeeD, it was easy to see only the outcome and focus on everything that had been saved. However, the fact remained that in the past year, lives and livelihoods had been destroyed, and the culprit in many cases wasn't Galbadia. The hour of judgment was nigh, and if their opponents had to be condemned, so would they.

Cid was working hard in minimizing the upcoming fallout, as well as preserving the positive public image the SeeDs were currently enjoying. Balamb Garden had never before been more flooded with requests for help, but neither had it been more broke. Every mission they accepted concerning the Lunar Cry swarm was strictly pro bono, as per Cid's orders. In other words, charity work.

In the midst of all this, the five SeeDs responsible for Ultimecia's downfall had been asked to appear before the International Alliance. The public demanded answers, and this assembly was held for that exact reason.

Unfortunately for SeeDs, all their answers required their audience make a substantial leap of faith and take their word for everything that had happened. Considering the public's opinion of mercenaries and the –not unsubstantial- damage caused by the 'good guys' en route to victory, Quistis couldn't blame Madame Dorcas, Trabia's President, for reacting the way she just had.

"Settle down, please," said Fabian Perry, Honorable Head of the International Alliance, General Assembly. He gave the sound block on his table a few raps with his gavel, bringing order back to the room.

Orunitia Dorcas, a middle-aged woman with a hard face and salt-and-pepper hair worn in a tight bun, resumed her seat. She interlaced her fingers on the lap of her no-nonsense black pantsuit and glared at Cid, still fuming.

"Now," Fabian Perry said, rubbing his temple with one finger. He was a small man with a pinched face; this whole situation had quite clearly put him under so much stress that he looked even smaller underneath his gown and giant glasses. "While I understand that the use of magic in warfare is not something the average man can fully grasp, I have to second President Dorcas's request for some tangible proof. Headmaster Kramer, I am sure you realize your word alone is not going to please the members of this assembly. I- yes, Mr. President, what is it?"

Quistis, along with every other head in the room, turned to Laguna who had just requested to speak.

"Your honor," he began. "Speaking as the President of a nation that has witnessed the power of a Sorceress first-hand, I would like to say a few things in Headmaster Kramer's defense."

It was the very first time Quistis had ever seen him act like an actual President, instead of the charming, if a little awkward, Galbadian soldier. She entertained herself with the thought that his leg was probably killing him right now, but he hid it well and spoke like he had no less right to be in that room than anyone else.

"The only people who can offer any credibility to the claims of the five SeeDs were denied attendance to this meeting," Laguna went on. "One has to wonder whether this was done intentionally, in order to further demonize an organizationwhich, quite frankly, put an end to a horrible war."

"And you are referring to...?" Fabian Perry asked.

"Former Sorceress Edea, Sorceress Rinoa and Dr. Lüel Odine," Laguna replied.

"President Perry, put an end to this mockery, please," Axeleon Pyke interjected, visibly angry and offended.

_The new Galbadian President, _Quistis thought, recognizing the young, red-haired man from the hundreds of pictures she had seen on newspapers. There had yet to be an official election, but he was now acting as Galbadia's interim President, taking care of all he could before the country was ready to elect a new representative. According to what she had heard, he was not a man who took kindly to magic.

"Sorceress Edea is Headmaster Kramer's _wife,_" President Pyke said. "Sorceress Rinoa is not only a friend to these SeeDs, but if the rumors are to be believed, Commander Leonhart's lover as well. Commander Leonhart is President Loire's _son_. Am I the only one who can see the conflict of interest here? How can _any_ of them be considered credible witnesses by any stretch of the imagination?"

"I ordered my men to kill my wife when she became dangerous," Cid said, his voice dropping an octave. "Is that credible enough for you?"

Silence fell in the room. While it was common knowledge by now that Cid had taken all the necessary steps once his wife had become possessed, no-one expected him to be so frank and open about it, including President Pyke, who cleared his throat and straightened his tie in dignified manner.

"The fact still remains that having the two Sorceresses here poses a great danger," he said. "If your claims of Sorceress possession are to be believed, who's to say our minds won't be manipulated?"

"That is precisely why I mentioned Dr. Odine," Laguna answered. "He is the only scientist to have ever worked so extensively on the nature of magic, and is, as such, a very dependable source. If it is mind control or any sort of magical retaliation you fear, I'm sure the Sorceresses in question wouldn't object to appear before you wearing Odine Bangles. That is, shackles that are designed to suppress the magical powers of a Sorceress."

"If I may," spoke Qwon Malvolio, a thin, gangly man in his fifties with shallow skin that Quistis recognized as Trabia Garden's Headmaster. "I would like to second President Loire's request for the presence of the two Sorceresses, as well as Dr. Odine. They will no doubt shed light to many of our questions. President Pyke, if it is a villain you're looking for, I suggest you track down Seifer Almasy-"

"Qwon, don't-" Cid began, shaking his head.

Quistis was momentarily shocked by the familiarity with which Cid addressed the other Headmaster. It was clear they knew each other well, but she hadn't expected Cid to speak so casually when dismissing what the other man was saying.

"—whose absence should be far more alarming to all of you than the nature of magic and para-magic," Malvolio went on. "What exactly is your Head of National Security doing, President Pyke, if not hunting down-"

Quistis had by now gotten used to the fact that a speaker would hardly be able to make his argument before someone else cut in, so it came as no surprise when Headmaster Malvolio was interrupted. What was surprising, however, was who spoke up next. If Quistis could have taken a guess, she wouldn't have picked the large, daunting man with the buzz-cut sitting next to the Balmish President.

"Seifer Almasy," Kale Gautler, General of the Balmish Army, said. "And his two accomplices have been offered immunity by Balamb. We are aware of their exact whereabouts, but until a trial is set, I refuse to disclose their location. Guilty though he may be, the boy deserves a fair trial and sanctuary from a lynch mob. It is not up to _you_ to decide what sort of punishment he should receive. And while we're on that matter, declaring a bounty on his head and flooding Balamb's borders with greedy opportunists eager to participate in a sickening cat-and-mouse game is stepping over the line, President Pyke."

"They _know?_" Zell growled in Quistis's ear. "They _know _where he is and they won't-"

"Shhhh," Quistis hissed at him, though not unkindly. She was just as surprised as Zell was at this new piece of information, but she wanted to hear the rest.

"Enough, enough," Fabian Perry said, resorting to his gavel for order once more. "This is not a courtroom, ladies and gentlemen. We are interested in _facts_, not open accusations and thinly veiled threats. Still, General Gautler raises a good point. Before any decisions can be made, all those involved in this war are to be cross-examined and tried in a legitimate court-martial."

Quistis's reaction, a sharp gasp of disbelief, was instantly shared by her peers. _Court-martial?_ she wondered. _Hyne, they're going to take us all down one by one._

"To that end," Perry went on. "I shall be appointing a judge to oversee the entire process, and I hereby proclaim Centra as neutral ground for the tribunal to take place in. Balamb Garden SeeDs and Headmasters, you may be excused."

"Come on," Cid whispered to his five men and stood up from his chair, his face a perfect mask of composure.

Quistis shared a look of foreboding with Irvine, and along with everyone else, followed Cid out of the chamber. She could feel every pair of eyes on them as they made their way out, and it was only when the heavy doors closed behind them that she could breathe easily again.

Selphie was the one who spoke first. "Okay, lemme make sure I got this straight," she said, holding her head with both hands. "We saved the world... and now we're going to be tried for it?"

"Not here," Cid said sharply, and continued to walk down the hallway.

The walk outside and into the SeeD van that had brought them there was unbearable. Quistis was brimming with questions; she wished she had brought a notepad and a pen along, because with every step she took, a new query emerged. By the time they were out of earshot, she feared she would have forgotten it all.

Once they were all inside the standard issue van and on the way back to Garden, Cid pushed a small button by his seat that put up a sound barrier between the driver's seat and the back of the van. "All right," he began, adjusting his glasses. "Yes, every single one of us will have to be tried. Saving the world wasn't exactly a quick or mess-free business. We can't expect our opponents to pay the price while we sit nicely and bask in our glory."

"But, sir!" Selphie exclaimed, scandalized. "What did _we_-?"

"Destroyed property in Galbadia, Balamb and Fisherman's Horizon, aided a General in the attempted murder of an ambassador of his country," Cid said. "Believe me, they can and will find more than enough reasons to put us on the stand. Whether we're guilty or not is an entirely different issue."

"Everyone knows wars are messy," Selphie said. "You can't completely escape friendly fire and casualties on both sides. Why the distinction this time?"

"Because there's no evidence we won the war in the first place," Quistis said, frowning. "Our word is pretty much all the proof we have. I don't like it any more than you do, but I can see where they're coming from."

"Puh-_lease_," Selphie said. "Whenever it suits them, our _organization,_" she said, putting up air quotes. "Is the best thing since sliced bread. As soon as we win a friggin' _war_ for them, the bitching and the vilifying starts all over again."

"Yes, well, there's talk of changing that for good," Cid said grimly. "Mercenary definitions set by the Blanche Convention are what allow us to stay in business in the first place. A loophole, that's it. So be careful, all of you. Don't appear to be even the least bit displeased by the coming events. We have to maintain our positive image, or the governments might demand a re-definition of what constitutes as a mercenary in upcoming conventions."

"Would they really go that far?" Squall asked. "Selphie is right. SeeDs are far too useful to many governments to be completely disbanded."

"True," Cid said. "But all they're trying to do is appear to be opposed to mercenaries. They want us to become dirty little secrets they can dig up whenever there's trouble, put an end to our autonomy. They would never completely shut us down, but they could make our life and work radically different."

"So what now?" Squall asked.

"Now, Perry will assign a judge," Cid replied. "We will be contacted soon enough with the date and time of the trials. I wouldn't be surprised if they give us strict instructions on what is to be done with Edea and Rinoa until the tribunal comes up; they'll certainly do it for Seifer, Fujin and Raijin."

" 'What is to be done with them'?" Squall repeated, his eyes darkening. Quistis could tell he already had a pretty good idea of where this was going, and she didn't like it one bit. "What does that even mean?"

It was Quistis who answered his question. "Secure locations," she said. "To make sure neither of them can flee and go into hiding or, alter the proceedings in any way to their favor."

"You mean they could take Rinoa away?" Zell asked.

_Yes,_ Quistis thought. And this time, with the power of entire nations behind that decision, Rinoa would stay away for good. Quistis felt a sharp pang in her chest at that thought. Not only because she knew it would tear Squall apart, but because she had started to grow close to the young Sorceress. With the exception of Xu, she and Selphie were the only people she had that could be considered friends. She supposed Irvine, Zell and Squall fell under the same category, but it was different. She couldn't share with them the kind of things she had shared with the two girls during the past year.

"It is likely," Cid said. Upon seeing that Squall was about to protest, he held one hand up to silence him. "I will talk to Laguna if that happens. See if the judge will allow Rinoa to be held in Esthar until then, under observation by Dr. Odine. It is not perfect, but she will be with people she knows. Laguna wouldn't let any harm come to her."

Quistis could see that the very last thing Squall wanted was for Rinoa to spend time with his father, but he understood that it was truly the better of two evils. Coming to terms with the idea that the President of Esthar was his father was already hard enough, made even worse by the fact that Laguna had simply blurted it out in his excitement. He meant well, Quistis knew, but Squall had been in shock ever since then.

_To have Rinoa spend the following months in the company of someone Squall feels abandoned him for nearly eighteen years must be torture_, Quistis mused.

"Now let me make this clear, because the coming months will be hard on all of us," Cid said. "I would never ask you to lie under oath, but I think we can all agree that Ellone should be left out of this debacle. She has suffered enough, and the whole time compression business took a lot out of her, both mentally and physically. It will be long before she makes a full recovery, and I for one wouldn't like to involve her more than we already have."

"You mean deny she played any part in the war, sir?" Irvine asked.

"Exactly."

Quistis, though a horrible liar, was just as determined as everyone else was to protect Ellone at all costs, even if it meant she would suffer inside all through the cross-examination. Still, the situation wasn't that simple. "Headmaster, I'd be glad to do this for Ellone, but how can we cover it up?" she asked. "Ultimecia scoured the globe looking for her, citizens were repeatedly told to report any sightings... there will be witnesses to confirm that."

"We won't deny the fact that Ultimecia was looking for her," Cid explained. "We'll simply have to come up with a reason that doesn't expose her special abilities and will require her to attend court very little, if at all."

"The White SeeDs," Squall said, staring at his bent knees. "We could say she was their leader. Ultimecia wanted to destroy all SeeDs and I imagine if she knew they existed, she would have wanted them dead as well."

Cid nodded. "We'll go over this with our attorney," he said. "See what he thinks. Our first order of business is to get you all prepped for the trial. As of now, you are all excused from any upcoming missions. Surviving this is out number one priority."

* * *

_**September 13**__**th**__** 4997 M.G.**_

_**Balamb City, Balamb**_

He wasn't really big on procrastination. Never had been. And yet with every day that went by, he would say to himself: _Tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll start figuring things out_. Tomorrow became next week, next week became next month, and it was now nearly two months after Raijin and Fujin had left Balamb.

Seifer had yet to fulfill any of the promises he'd made Raijin. Every morning, he'd wake up before the alarm clock went off and just stare at the ceiling for hours until he forced himself to get up and go to work. He never thought about anything specific; he never allowed himself to. Keeping everything vague and focusing on the day ahead of him was easier.

He still went fishing every afternoon, still brought a six-pack of beers along with him, and never left the pier until the sun came down.

That day, he was down to his third beer when he heard footsteps behind him. He didn't pay any attention to the person approaching. The pier was secluded enough, but the occasional lone fisherman would show up from time to time. Seifer tightened the line a little and secured the pole on the platform, reaching over for the pack of Ochus next to him and slipping out a cigarette.

He couldn't see his lighter anywhere, and began looking into his pockets. All of a sudden, he head a click from his right and saw the lit flame of a lighter hover before him. Blinking, he turned to his right to see who had offered him a light.

It was a man, crouched down to Seifer's level and holding out the lighter with a smile on his face. Seifer muttered a quick 'Thanks' under his breath, lit up and scooted backwards to get a better look at the stranger. The man was significantly older than him. How old Seifer wouldn't say, but he appeared to be close to his fifties. He had a thick mane of short hair, most of it gone gray from age, but there were still some red tufts scattered in between that betrayed the man's natural hair color. He had the wildest sideburns Seifer had even seen on a person, and he was wearing a uniform. A very familiar uniform.

"Are you Seifer? Seifer Almasy?" he asked, pocketing the lighter. His voice was deep and resonating.

Seifer blew a cloud of smoke out of the corner of his mouth. "Judging by your uniform, you already know who I am. What do you want?" he said, frowning. The last thing he needed right now was to deal with SeeD.

The man took a seat next to him and tutted. "Is this how you always speak to someone who was kind enough to offer you a light?"

Seifer glared at him. _Galbadian accent. So he's not with Balamb or Trabia. Well, at least not Balamb,_ he thought. _I would've recognized him._

"I have a proposition for you," the old SeeD went on, undeterred by Seifer's clearly hostile attitude.

"Shove it up your ass."

"We call it 'arse' over my side of the pond," the man said, chuckling. "And you haven't even heard my proposition yet; why are you so quick to dismiss it?"

"You're here for one of two reasons," Seifer said, holding up his index finger. "One, you're looking to score, in which case I'm flattered, but try to grope me and you'll be eating out of a straw, or two," Seifer went on, holding up another finger as the man looked amused. "You're here because SeeD wants something from me, in which case the answer 'Fuck no' doesn't even begin to cover how uninterested I am."

"Thankfully for my safety, it's number two," the man said. "But are you sure you have no intention whatsoever of trying for SeeD again?"

Seifer frowned. "Try for SeeD?" he repeated. "_That's_ what you came here to offer me?"

The man nodded.

Seifer narrowed his eyes at him. "Who are you?" he asked. Neither Garden wanted anything to do with him. Not Balamb and _certainly_ not Trabia. As for Galbadia Garden, they had a bounty on his head. Until the court-martial scheduled on December, Balamb offered him sanctuary (at the cost of his weapon and a ban on magic use), but as soon as that was over, he had no doubt their bloodhounds would be on him like white on rice.

"Jonah Meric," the man said, extending his hand for Seifer to shake. "Headmaster of Galbadia Garden."

Seifer stared at the proffered hand, then at the man called Meric and burst out laughing. "Get the fuck out of here," he said, and tossed his cigarette into the sea, shaking his head.

"I'm sorry, are you being literal or metaphorical?"

"Both," Seifer said. "You're no more the Headmaster of G-Garden than I am the Duchess of Dollet."

"I have the paperwork to prove it, but I really don't understand why I have to," Meric said. "Is it really that hard to believe I'm with Galbadia Garden?"

"You do know who I am, right? Unless you landed on this planet less than four months ago, you'd know what I did last year. Everyone in SeeD knows," Seifer said.

"If you're talking about the bounty on your head, I've called the whole thing off," Meric said. "First thing I did when I was made Headmaster."

"And why the hell would you do that?"

"Because I want you to join us," Meric explained. "Here's the paperwork that proves I'm not an impostor," he went on, placing a folder on the ground next to Seifer. "City Hall can confirm the authenticity of it all. Think about what I said, and if you're interested, meet me at the Balamb Breeze pub at nine o' clock tonight. If not, come anyway. You can hand me the folder back and I'll never bother you again."

And just as quietly and unexpectedly as he had come, the stranger left.

For the longest time, Seifer didn't even bother opening the envelope. He tried to focus on his fishing, but it didn't work. He fought the urge to look, to go check if Jonah Meric had been telling him the truth, insisting he didn't have to know because he didn't care.

Later that evening, after he had checked and found out the papers were indeed genuine, he tried to convince himself that would be the end of it. Now his curiosity had been sated, and he could go back to his normal routine. Seifer knew there was a hidden agenda behind the offer and tried to remind himself that this was exactly why he wanted nothing to do with SeeD ever again. Too many politics, too many games, and he was tired of being their pawn.

And yet he found that his whole day was spent agonizing over what would happen if he didn't at least try, if he didn't even accept a simple invitation for drinks. The promise he had made to Raijin was eating him up inside, and there was no alleviating the feeling he would be betraying a friend if he didn't give this a shot.

_I'm doing this for Raijin. One drink and I'm gone, _Seifer thought for the umpteenth time as he got dressed and made his way towards the hotel.

He told himself he was only going to return the folder, but deep down, he was curious to know what this Meric's deal was. He was curious to know why he had withdrawn the bounty and exactly what he wanted from him. He doubted he'd get the truth out of the man, but at the very least, he could score a free drink out of the meeting.

He found Meric in the pub at nine o' clock sharp, just as he'd said he would. He was still in his SeeD uniform, sitting on a stool by the bar and watching the Sphere game while sipping his drink. Seifer took a deep breath and approached the bar.

He tossed the folder in front of Meric and took a seat on the stool next to him. The older man turned to acknowledge Seifer, looking pleased with himself; he was undoubtedly certain he'd say yes.

"So... you're legit," Seifer said.

"Indeed I am," Meric said, nudging the folder to the side.

Seifer held up a hand to get the bartender's attention and ordered a Reagan, neat. Meric said nothing, waiting until they both had a drink in hand before he spoke again.

"Have you given any thought to my proposal?" he asked, getting straight to the point.

"I don't even know what your proposal _is,_" Seifer said, reaching for the nuts.

"I told you, I want you to join our Garden and earn your SeeDship there," Meric repeated.

"Yeah, yeah, I heard that part," Seifer said. "What I didn't hear was the part where you tell me what's in it for you," he finished, pointing at Meric with his index finger.

Jonah Meric shrugged. "Can't my motives be purely altruistic?"

Seifer nearly spat his mouthful of Reagan, laughing. "I won't even dignify that with a response. So... What do you want?"

"Despite your... sabbatical, if you will," Meric began. Seifer had to arch an eyebrow at that; he'd heard it called many things, but sabbatical was a first. "You remain one of the best gunblade specialists in the world. You'd be a great asset to our force."

"You didn't get to be a Headmaster without _some_ idea of what the hell is going on right now," Seifer said. "You can't _not_ know that SeeD and the world governments are out for my blood."

"I am aware of the baggage that comes along with your skills, yes," Meric said. "The trial is on December, am I correct?"

Seifer nodded.

"My lawyers can free you of any and all charges. You'll walk out of that courtroom a free man."

Seifer had heard enough. It was one thing to expect to hear a lie, or half a truth at best, but it was completely another to be treated like an idiot. He set his glass down with a loud thud and turn to glare at Meric. "Cut the crap."

The old man arched his eyebrows at him.

"You can't possibly tell me you have _nothing_ to gain other than me as a SeeD under your command. You wouldn't be offering all this if there wasn't a catch," Seifer said.

Thankfully, for Seifer's temper and sanity, Meric dropped the act and held his hands up to placate him. "All right, guilty as charged," he admitted.

"Let's hear it then. What do you get out of me joining you?"

"How much time do you have?" Meric asked.

"I'm not in a hurry," Seifer said.

"Good," Meric said, and turned to the bartender. "Give us the bottle, please," he said.

Seifer snorted. "If you think you'll get me drunk enough to accept, you're out of luck. Not even Raijin can put me under the table and he weighs three times as much has I do," he said. All right, so that was a lie, but Meric didn't have to know.

"I'm just trying to be friendly here," Meric said, refilling both their glasses. "If you're going to hear my sob story, I'd better treat you to a couple of drinks."

"Sob story, huh?" Seifer said, taking a sip out of his glass. "Fun." He was in no mood to hear what was probably a lie-ridden tearjerker, but at least, as he had hoped, he was going to get a few drinks out of the deal. The bottle of Reagan Meric just bought was far better than the cat piss he'd been drinking, anyway.

In fact, it was _damn _good. It was the kind of Reagan Rinoa's father used to drink. It was one of the few things he remembered, or rather _wanted_ to remember about Fury Caraway. The man was intimidating like hell, but he sure knew how to drink. Seifer distinctly remembered Rinoa tipping the bottle against their glasses with the utmost care so as not to spill more than a tiny sip, telling him that her father always told her this bottle of Reagan cost more than most people made in a year.

_Fuck, don't think about Rinoa,_ he grumbled inwardly. He _so _didn't need a reminder of the war right now. If he was going to hear a sob story, he sure as hell didn't need to remember his own sob story as well.

"Let's start at the beginning, shall we?" Meric asked.

"Let's shall."

Whatever Seifer expected to hear, what Meric said next definitely wasn't it. "Are you a religious man, Seifer?" he asked.

Seifer blinked. "Er... not particularly."

"Me neither," Meric said. "But I find the Codex Caelestis to be a literary masterpiece. I read it- forgive the pun- religiously, once every month or so."

"Good... for you?" Seifer said, not really knowing what was the appropriate thing to say or what on earth Meric was getting at.

"My favorite passage is the story of _Alcon, the Just_, which supposedly took place nearly four thousand years ago," Meric went on.

"Wow... When you said 'the beginning' you weren't kidding," Seifer said, now hoping he _would _get drunk soon enough.

"I won't take up much of your time, don't worry," Meric said, grinning. "Where was I? Ah, yes... See, Alcon was a good man, a man with his heart in the right place. I won't bore you with the specifics of the story,"

_Thank Hyne._

"But suffice to say he was... misunderstood by many. He was passionate about doing good in the world, being on the side of justice, but his actions were often controversial. He was of the firm opinion that the rules don't apply to all situations. A man who steals to feed his starving family is not a criminal, a person who kills someone in self-defense is not a murderer and so on."

Seifer had to try hard to suppress a smirk. _Of course,_ he thought wryly. _That's what he's getting at; controversial missions._ "I was always taught that the ends don't justify the means," he said.

"Of course not. Not when you harm others to achieve your goals."

"Exactly," Seifer said, munching on an almond. "So why don't you put the religious allegories aside and tell me what kind of dirty work you'd have me do under your command."

Meric shook his head. "You misunderstand me. Alcon's story doesn't apply to you and the work you'd be asked to do in Galbadia Garden, it applies to _me_," he explained. "I was dishonorably discharged from the Galbadian Army two months ago."

_Hmmm, okay, I was wrong, this story _is_ interesting,_ Seifer thought. "What for?"

"Breaking the rules."

"No shit, I never would have guessed. What. For?"

"You've heard about the Lunar Cry, haven't you?"

Seifer gave Meric an are-you-kidding-me glare.

"Oh, right, I forgot," Meric said, wincing. "Anyway, what you may not have heard is that the fallout has not been fully cleared out yet," he said. "During time compression the monsters found a way to... relocate," Meric said. "We still don't know how."

_I know,_ Seifer thought, grimacing. It was the gates. When he'd been wandering around during time compression, he'd come across one of them. Lost and confused, he had stepped through and found himself transported to- _Fuck, I don't even know how to describe it in my head,_ he thought. _It was a giant chain with three gates hovering next to it. Worst acid trip ever._ He'd tried one of the other three doors and just like that, he was back into the world, but it wasn't Esthar, where he'd initially been. He was pretty sure he had somehow been transported to Centra.

He still had no explanation whatsoever about what the gates were there for, or why they had been created in the first place, but if he had discovered them, it was safe to say the monsters could have, too.

"For months, military organizations from all over the world, including SeeD, have been dispatching teams wherever infestations have reached critical levels," Meric went on. "My battalion was sent to Northern Esthar."

_Northern Esthar, huh? _"Grandidi Forest?" Seifer asked.

"Yes."

"Grandidi was hell even without the Lunar Cry. I hear it got hit pretty bad," he said, for a moment feeling sorry for the stranger sitting next to him if he had faced the horrors of that Hyne forsaken place.

"It did," Meric said grimly. "When we got there, even the few remote villages in the area had been nearly wiped out. We were ordered to protect the Kasanagi province, a tri-village area where the situation was... bad." His fingers shook as he said that last word.

"One of the villages was already abandoned. We spent nearly one month there, and there seemed to be no end to it. Wave after wave, they would come and destroy everything in their path. We held the threat back as best we could, but we were losing people fast. On the eve of the... incident, I sent two messengers to request aid from Esthar. My superiors didn't like that. They wanted us to withdraw.

They said we'd done enough, and when the infestation crossed the border, it would be Esthar's problem. To make a long story short, I stayed behind. A few of my men joined me. They all understood that if we let the wave cross over, Esthar was done for. They had few northern fortifications as their own forces were battling the threat from the south border. My team and I were unofficially discharged on the spot. Two days later, the Esthar reinforcements came, and we put an end to the infestation. The few of us who made it back to Galbadia were then officially discharged."

"You're a fucking hero then," Seifer said wryly, once Meric had finished his narration. "Still don't see where I come into the picture."

"I was discharged for doing something my superiors didn't like, but as it turns out, that something ended up helping a lot of people," he said, and there was a tiny smile on his lips. He didn't look the least bit sorry to have seen the last of the Galbadian army. "You once did the same."

"I did?" Seifer said, arching an eyebrow.

"Dollet. If you hadn't insisted on investigating the communication tower, Balamb Garden wouldn't have had a clue about the imminent threat."

Seifer didn't bother asking how Meric knew all that. As soon as he'd been made Headmaster, he would've gained access to all past and present SeeD records. "And look where _that_ got me," Seifer said, downing his glass.

"You made a few... bad decisions afterward," Meric conceded. "But that very first one impressed the hell out of me" he said. Strangely enough, it sounded honest. "I need men like you. If we're going to rebuild Galbadia Garden from the top down, we have to be willing to take a few risks. And that's where you come in."

Seifer pushed the glass away before Meric had time to refill it. _Enough_, he thought. _Enough now. Not even a whole case of this is worth bringing up old ghosts. _ "Look... I appreciate the offer, but the answer is no," he said. "I'm fine right where I am. If I get caught in the middle of all this Garden crap once again, I'll make the same mistakes. And I'm _really_ not eager to take another beating from the Merry Sextet."

"Fine?" Meric scoffed. "Boy, you're as far from fine as you possibly could be," he said, and it was the first time since they met that his friendly demeanor vanished. "What are you going to do for the rest of your life? Fish and drink yourself into a stupor every day because you're bored out of your mind? That is, assuming you don't end up behind bars come December."

Seifer scowled. "What's it to you? I have options-"

"You have _nothing_. I'm offering _something_. Do the smart thing and accept."

Seifer's scowl deepened. He was glad his gunblade had been confiscated, otherwise the old fucktard would be choking in a pool of his own blood right about now. "Fuck this. I don't have to listen to this crap," he said, and dug into his pocket for his wallet, with every intention to pay for his share and leave.

Jonah Meric reached down and grabbed Seifer's wrist. "What do you have to lose, Seifer? All I'm asking for are three months. If, by the time your trial comes up, you don't want to join me, then you're free to go."

"Let go," Seifer growled.

"Once the trial is over and you're free of all charges, you can leave."

Without moving a single inch, Seifer glared at Meric out of the corner of his eye. "You're willing to waste time and money on me, keep me out of jail, even if it means I walk out in the end?"

"Yes."

_Is he for real?_ Seifer wondered, staring at Meric in disbelief.

He could think of a million ways to say no to this insane proposal. He _should_ say no. There was no guarantee whatsoever that this person wasn't using Seifer to advance his own agenda, as had happened in the past. There was no way he could agree to something like this. He wouldn't.

"Well?" Meric asked.

Seifer clenched his jaw."When do we leave?"

* * *

_**October 6**__**th**__** 4997 M.G.**_

_**Balamb Garden**_

Squall rested his cheek against his balled fist, staring at Rinoa's sleeping form.

The only light in his room came from the moonlight that filtered through the window. It fell on her face and shoulders, tinting her pale skin with a silvery glow. She looked more beautiful than ever.

The situation was surreal. This girl, this amazing, angelic woman, liked him just as he was, warts and all. She _loved_ him, she'd said, _him_, who was so damaged and messed up and she wanted him. _It doesn't make sense, things just don't happen this way in the real world,_ he wanted to rationalize, but this was real, this had happened, and Squall realized he had been waiting for this ever since he had kissed her out in that balcony.

Tonight, they had made love for the first time.

Part of him hated the circumstances it had all taken place under. Whenever he'd fantasized about this moment in the past, Rinoa didn't have to leave the next morning for Esthar for Hyne knew how long and he hadn't acted like a clueless idiot for the better part of the night.

Even with her imminent departure, Squall hadn't considered taking the first step toward this. Selphie had organized a small get-together for them all to give Rinoa a proper goodbye. When he asked Rinoa to leave at some point after midnight and spend some time alone, all he'd wanted to do was take a walk with her and give her a small gift he had picked up for her from his latest mission in Galbadia.

When they reached his room, Squall immediately went for the gift, whereas Rinoa had other ideas. After a long, _long, _and painfully awkward conversation, Rinoa had realized Squall was being literal when he asked her to make a small stop at his dorm, and Squall realized what it was Rinoa had in turn imagined.

…...

_Squall looked away, unable to face Rinoa at the moment. It was as if someone had turned the thermostat up to a thousand degrees. A deep blush seared his cheeks and he could do nothing to stop it._

_He had thought about this in the past, of course he had. The few stolen moments he'd so far enjoyed in Rinoa's company were squeezed in between responsibilities, friends and family, but they had been passionate. Once or twice, his hand had accidentally slipped, but she had responded with fervor. There never seemed to be enough time to fully explore, to experiment, and there was part of him who wanted that, for the simple reason that before meeting her, he had never so much as kissed anyone._

_Five months after that first kiss, he was now facing the opportunity of doing something he had long yearned for, but had also dreaded. He had never asked -nor did he think he wanted to know- how experienced Rinoa was, but judging from what had just happened, she felt far more comfortable than he did in initiating intimacy. He didn't want to think about the implications of that._

_"Anyway..." Rinoa said, putting a stop to Squall's train of thought. "What was it you wanted to get?" _

_Squall looked up sharply, feeling even worse than before. How long had he been silent? Had he hurt her by avoiding her eyes? Did she expect a discussion over this? _

_Realizing_ _this was probably the worst possible time to be silent again,_ _he urged himself to speak up and say something, anything. "I uh... got something. For you. From Roshfall," he said, indicating the package in his hands._

_"For me? You mean a gift?"_

_He nodded in response._

_Rinoa stepped closer to him, holding out her hand. "Can I see it?"_

_He handed her the little package, which suddenly seemed _too_ little and too pathetic and Hyne, why hadn't he bought them from a _real_ jewelry store instead of a cheap little street vendor? Was he _trying_ to add insult to injury? Maybe it wasn't too late to yank it out of her hands... Though he realized that would make things even worse, if such a thing was possible._

_Before he could make a decision, Rinoa opened the package and tilted it, spilling the contents into her outstretched palm. Two small earrings fell out. The vendor had called them dangle earrings, if memory served. They were of simple design, made with silver and ending in a flower-like pattern of small, light blue stones. _

_Rinoa gasped. "Squall! These are _lovely_," she said, and a wide smile illuminated her face. "How did-?"_

_"The vendor asked me what you looked like," Squall replied. "I described you, what you usually wear and then she asked for your birth date. She said you'd like them," he explained, unsure whether he should sound confident or apologetic. What if she was only being polite?_

_"I do!" Rinoa said, smiling. "Aquamarine is my birth stone and I really like it, so most of my jewelry is made with aquamarines." _

_Squall was certain his stomach had grown a life of its own by now. The churning wouldn't stop, and upon mention of aquamarines, things became worse. He knew next to nothing about jewelry, but he _did_ know aquamarines were expensive. And these earrings were not. "They're not... _actual_ aquamarines, just the color-" he began, grimacing._

_"I don't care," Rinoa said, and it sounded like she meant it. "They're beautiful, thank you." she said, and placed them back in the package. She set it down on the desk and approached him, putting her arms around his neck again. "That was really sweet of you," she said, and gave him a light peck on the lips._

_Squall put his arms around her, feeling the spots where her hands touched bare flesh burn. He knew he had gravely disappointed her tonight, and perhaps the small gift had made up for a few things, but it wasn't nearly enough. He'd have to do better than this from now on. Much better._

_"I'm sorry I ruined things earlier," he said, frowning. "I'll... I'll get better at this. I'll change," he promised._

_Rinoa's facial expression didn't change. She continued to be as maddeningly sweet and understanding as ever, little though he deserved it. "Don't you dare," she said, and raked her fingers through his hair. "I love you just the way you are." _

_The second she spoke, Rinoa seemed to realize what she'd just said. Her face blanched, and she hurried to put her hands up to placate him. "Uhhh... Look, you don't have to- I mean, it's okay if you don't-"_

_He silenced her with a kiss._

_Just like that, it no longer mattered that he was nervous and inexperienced and Hyne knew how very, very wrong for someone as beautiful as Rinoa. It didn't matter what she had done in previous relationships or with whom. It didn't matter that, in a perfect world, they'd have all the time in the world to explore each other and their budding relationship._

_Rinoa kissed him back fervently, tightening her grip on his hair. He responded in kind, pressing on her waist to pull her body against his. They had shared passionate kisses before, but it had never been like this, _nothing_ like this. There was a promise hidden underneath the surface, of what was to come, and he didn't even need to ask if they were on the same page. Her actions spoke loud and clear._

_Feeling dizzy, but not at all eager to pull away, he reached down and picked her up into his arms. Their lips parted for a split second. Rinoa let out a gasp at the sudden gesture, and it was all she had time to do before their mouths joined again and Squall carried her toward the bed._

_They did everything without thinking, without pausing for a single word or breath, and though Squall was marveling at how natural and amazing it felt to touch and undress her, it was Rinoa who first noticed his trembling hands. She pointed it out, caressing his face and asking if he was all right._

_How could he respond to that? What could he say? I've never done this before? I haven't the first clue what I'm doing? _

_His hands felt too large and too callused and clumsy, he was scared his full weight on her would be too much, it would be uncomfortable, and he couldn't stop thinking about those damned videos they'd been forced to watch for Sex Ed as cadets. He felt anger, seething anger at whoever had been dumb enough to think that insert-part A-to-hole B-and-don't-forget-to-wear-a-condom was adequate instruction for such a situation. This was the kind of thing a parent would most likely explain with a little more tact and affection, but the last thing he needed to think about right now was _his_ father. _

That_ screwed up situation was a whole other matter and if he stopped to think that the President of Esthar, that bumbling buffoon who made lame jokes and got leg cramps and couldn't even walk across a room without causing _some_ sort of catastrophe- for fuck's sake, why was he thinking about Laguna?_

_"I... I'm..." he stammered. "I haven't-"_

_Rinoa placed her index finger on his lips. "It's okay. If you want this, it doesn't matter to me."_

_"I want this. I want you. I love you, too," he wanted to say, and with a sinking feeling, he realized he hadn't said it back. He couldn't say it now, not right before this. He couldn't say it afterwards, it would be tacky and give her the impression he was only grateful she had slept with him. But if he waited too long, it might be too late, and she might feel hurt he had taken that long-_

_"I'm ready," he said, and it felt like the lamest thing in the world to say right now._

_But Rinoa smiled, and for the next few minutes she was as patient and wonderful with him as she'd always been. Even more so because he was certain he must've made a fool of himself more than twice. It was over far too quick, something he was mortified about, and yet she whispered sweet things in his ear and it wasn't long before they tried again._

…_..._

Reliving the whole experience in his head, Squall smiled and inched closer to her under the blanket. Rinoa gave a sleepy moan as he put his arms around her waist. The way she fit against him so perfectly gave him goosebumps.

He didn't want to fall asleep, because once he did, it would be morning far too soon and Rinoa would have to go. It would be long before they would see each other again, and he feared that if something, anything went wrong, she would have to stay in Esthar forever.

_We could run away,_ he mused, resting his chin against the crook of her smooth shoulder. _Leave everything behind and disappear. _

If it came down to this, he knew he wouldn't hesitate to abandon his life and everyone in it to keep her safe. He would do anything.

"I love you," he whispered.

Next to him, Rinoa shifted slightly and ran her fingers over his arms softly. "I know," she said, and went back to sleep with a smile on her face.

* * *

_**October 15**__**th**__** 4997 M.G.**_

_**Galbadia Garden**_

Jonah Meric's office was what anyone would've expected a disciplined soldier's office to look like. Spartan in decoration, it held only a desk, one office chair behind it, two comfortable, leather armchairs before it, and a large bookcase.

The only even marginally ornamental things in the room were a painting of Obel Lake on the wall behind the desk, and the few framed pictures scattered on the bookcase. Seifer didn't recognize any of the men and women in the photos, but he could see most of them were military personnel. His eyes had been going over the mediocre painting for the past two minutes; he know as much about art as he knew about Esthari paper-folding –which was to say nothing- but there was something soothing about the soft blues which the water of the lake had been painted in.

He shifted in one of the leather armchairs, and turned to look at the man sitting on its pair right across him, looking at him patiently but expectantly. He was in his sixties, he guessed, with short-cropped grey hair and dark brown eyes. He was dressed in a dark grey suit that looked tailor-made and very expensive.

"You know…" Seifer began, tilting his head to the side. "All this time, I never thought that anything I'd done was wrong… I just… I wanted someone to _understand_ me, someone to stop and actually listen to what _I_ have to say… I—" He suddenly stopped.

The older man nodded, his face betraying nothing but sympathy for the patient pouring his heart and soul out to him. "Go on, Seraph" he said. "Remember: no-one will judge you within the walls of this room. There's only acceptance and love to be found in here."

Seifer averted his gaze, looking embarrassed. "It _hurt_. No-one understood… It hurt to be alone…"

"Come on, Seraph," Dr. Stein urged him, using the fake name he and Jonah had agreed upon for these sessions. "Bit more. You're not going to get off that easily."

"It's just... hard. To talk about it."

"I know it is, son, but this is the only cure for what's ailing you. You need to let go of all your reservations and make an honest effort to talk about your past."

Seifer nodded, crossing his arms in front of his chest and tapping his foot on the floor nervously. "You know... Headmaster Meric has uhh... arranged other sessions in the past. With others, I mean-"

The older man cut him off, smiling. "I know, he told me that much," he said. "You found it hard to talk to them as well?"

"Yes, but... with you? It's different," Seifer said, now looking straight into the brown eyes of the well-dressed man before him. "I'm trying, I really am, I just... I need more time. But I think I've finally found someone I can talk to openly. Before I met you, I... I just felt angry _all_ the time. Now... it's starting to get better."

Dr. Stein smiled kindly and pat Seifer on the knee. "You need to let go of your anger, Seraph. It has only brought you pain and misery. Admitting that much today was a _huge_ step towards curing yourself of any vestiges of fear and malice," he said. "I'm very proud of you."

"Th-thank you."

"You're welcome. I'm here for you, Seraph," Dr. Stein went on. He had yet to remove his hand from Seifer's knee and kept on rubbing it tenderly. "You can talk to me about anything. _Anything_."

Seifer stared at the wrinkled hand on his knee and then at Dr. Stein. "So is this like a regular thing for you?" he asked, arching an eyebrow.

The doctor blinked in confusion. "Excuse me?"

"Get 'em while they're vulnerable?"

"I'm sorry, I don't unders-"

Seifer pulled his knee away and crossed his legs lazily. "You and I were one mushy confession away from a sloppy kiss and an awkward ass-fuck right here on this desk," he said, indicating Jonah's desk with his thumb.

Dr. Stein was up on his feet in milliseconds, looking affronted. "I BEG YOUR PARD-!"

"Save it. Those pedo eyes you gave me back there? Saw right through them. Who's the pro now, bitch?" he said with a smirk, giving Dr. Stein a one-fingered salute.

The doctor picked up his binder and stormed out of the room in a huff. Seifer followed him, his lips drawn into gleeful grin, watching as Dr. Stein wrenched the door open and sped right past the lobby in a hurried strut.

At the sound of the door opening, Jonah, who had been sitting quietly on a chair outside the office, looked up from the old issue of _Weapons Monthly_ on his lap. His reading glasses had slipped down his nose and they almost dropped when he stood up quickly and tried to stop Dr. Stein from reaching the elevator.

"Eric? What—?" he began.

Dr. Stein smacked the elevator call button crankily, and turned to look at Jonah. "I quit," he said, his voice shaking with anger. Over Jonah's shoulder, he gave Seifer one last look of pure loathing and disappeared behind the sliding doors.

Jonah sighed and removed his glasses, rubbing his forehead.

Seifer watched the scene from the door, hands in his pockets, frame leaning against the threshold. Jonah still had his back turned to him, but Seifer knew that when he faced him, he would be livid. Or perhaps just disappointed. _Let's see if we can go for livid._ "Can I sue for sexual harassment?" Seifer asked, chuckling.

Jonah swiveled around, his face contorted. _Livid it is._ "This is the _seventh_ time, Seifer. _SEVENTH_!" he yelled, throwing his glasses against the floor, his hands shaking. Almost immediately, he seemed to regret smashing his spectacles, but he didn't spare them a second glance, focusing instead on Seifer.

The tall blond wasn't the least bit abashed. He wasn't a _complete_ ingrate; he knew that what Jonah was trying to do for him cost a lot of money and took up a big chunk of his time, but Seifer had to draw the line when it came to therapy. He had tried to tell Jonah, repeatedly, before resorting to such measures, but the old man was adamant.

The judge who had been appointed to oversee the upcoming trials had agreed to end Seifer's self-imposed exile and release him into Jonah's custody until the day of the tribunal. His weapon and magic privileges were still revoked, and the only way to earn them back was not only to survive the court-martial, but also to complete seventy hours of therapy under a certified psychologist.

Seifer knew Jonah couldn't go against the judge's wishes, but at the very least, he could've gotten him a horrible, bored professional who simply wanted the check and was willing to ask only a handful of non-intrusive questions. Instead, Jonah had taken the whole deal seriously and had tracked down men and women who, in his words, were the _best_.

He had to admit, he had been a _little_ disappointed that no-one had yet to try giving him that unpronounceable test, the one with the the black smudges where he was supposed to say what he could see. _And I came up with _such_ good answers, too... _Maybe the next one would do it.

"I think I can make it to ten before the month's out," he said, bobbing on the balls of his feet excitedly. "Wanna go for it?"

"First you terrorized the people in group therapy-" Jonah said testily, holding out his index finger.

Seifer smiled fondly at the memory of that event. "Like shooting fish in a barrel," he said. When Dr. Rune had asked him to talk about himself in group therapy, Seifer had decided to take as many down with him as he could before security escorted him outside.

First, he'd asked Dr. Rune to open the windows to let some air in, because it felt stuffy, like the walls were closing in on them. He'd said that staring straight into the claustrophobic's eyes.

Then he started talking about his imaginary childhood in a dumpy little place near Dingo desert, mentioning the great food and how he felt he'd been getting a little chubby. When he'd tried to be friendly and tell the anorexic girl he was happy he wasn't the only pudgy one in the group, she had looked horrified for some obscure reason.

The paranoid one had been a lucky guess, if he was being honest with himself. After noticing the 'I believe' slogan on the man's shirt, a slogan made popular through a new conspiracy-theory TV show, he'd decided to take a shot. The White SeeDs were not even remotely as known to the public as other SeeD branches were, so it had been easy to convince the man they were watching, _always_ watching.

And just when he was getting warmed up, he got kicked out of group therapy.

"Then I sign you up for private sessions and you start with the name-calling and the racial slurs-" Jonah went on, listing all failed sessions with his fingers.

"She called me 'cracker' first."

"Then you pretended to hear voices. Twice."

Seifer shrugged. "What can I say? It's a classic."

"Then you said you thought you were a vegetarian vampire who liked to sparkle in the sun-"

"You gotta admit," Seifer said, chuckling. "That was a good one-"

"I don't even _want _to know what you told this poor man."

"I said-"

Jonah held up a hand, stopping him.

"So who's next?" Seifer asked, rubbing his hands together.

The Headmaster put his hands against his hips, breathing through his nostrils. He was giving Seifer a hard, calculating look, perhaps deliberating about what to do or say next. "Me," he said.

Seifer blinked once, certain he hadn't hear correctly. "What?"

"It doesn't look like you're going to take this seriously, so I'm taking it upon me to fix that mess you call a conscience."

* * *

_**November 2**__**nd**__** 4997 M.G.**_

_**Centra**_

"Seriously, Matron," Selphie said from her perch on Edea's kitchen counter. "If those two are harassing you, just say the word and they're history."

Edea shook her head, laughing at Selphie's conspiratorial tone and kept on wiping the dishes dry. "I told you, it won't be necessary," she said, for what was probably the thousandth time that day. "I invited them here."

Selphie scrunched up her nose, sharing a look of distaste with Squall who sat in one of the chairs in the kitchen, watching the exchange. When Cid had asked them to accompany him to the Centra orphanage so he could see his wife, Selphie had been expecting a private familial affair. Finding Fujin and Raijin there had been a surprise, to say the least.

"I still don't get why," Selphie said, crossing her arms. From the other room, she could hear a casual conversation taking place, punctuated every now and then by Fujin's booming, single-word replies. Cid, Zell, Irvine and Quistis had taken to Fujin and Raijin's presence more calmly than Squall and Selphie had.

She knew they were sorry for the events of the war, as well as the fact that they were the only ones who seemed to have any sense whatsoever at the time and had tried to talk Seifer out of his path of destruction. She could even sympathize with them, but she had never thought she'd lay eyes on them again before the tribunal. They'd all barely had any time to digest the end of the war, and things were already moving fast. It was a little too early to start to forgive and forget.

"I taught you better than this," Edea said, frowning at Selphie. "They have nowhere to go, and I would've thought you, the most compassionate of the children I raised, would've been a little more understanding."

Selphie kicked the air in front of hair, pouting. "I'm fine with Fujin and Raijin. They're okay. But they know where Seifer is, and they won't-"

"We're done discussing this," Edea said, wiping her hands on her floral apron. "I trust Fujin and Raijin. Even if I didn't, the guards stationed outside my home day in and day out would make sure nothing ill happened to me or them. When this is all over, I want them to stay here with me, as my personal guards. Get used to this."

Selphie looked outside the window at the guards Edea had mentioned. Once a trial date had been set, all those charged with the wrongdoings committed during the war had been placed under house arrest and were being watched round the clock by Centra soldiers. Edea had asked Fujin and Raijin to come work for her long before that had happened. From what she had told Selphie, she thought it would make things easier for all three of them, not to mention that Fujin and Raijin couldn't afford a lawyer who could handle their case.

"You are assuming they'll be found innocent on all charges," Squall muttered, running his finger over the small vase of flowers resting on the table.

"Yes, I am," Edea said, and leaned her back against the the sink, looking at him. "You should both stop fretting over this. If there's anything or anyone you _should_ be worried about, it's Rinoa."

Selphie stared at her shoes as she swung her legs back and forth. Less than a month ago, Rinoa had left for Esthar. Sir Laguna and Dr. Odine had agreed to monitor her until the day of the trial. It wasn't a perfect situation, and there had been lots of tears and tight embraces right before she left, but at the very least, she was surrounded by familiar faces who would treat her well. Sir Laguna had promised Squall he wouldn't let Dr. Odine anywhere near Rinoa unless he was present as well.

Squall averted his gaze and turned to look at the flowers in the vase, grimacing. "Rinoa is... she's fine. Ellone is looking after her," he said.

"I know she is, but that's not what I'm talking about," Edea said, sighing. "I know first-hand what it's like to be with someone who knows they may have to kill you in the future. It's an impossible situation on its own, made all the more difficult by the scrutiny the couple faces when people find out.

After the trial, you and Rinoa need to be very careful. Don't flaunt your relationship to _anyone_ you don't trust, not even your SeeDs. The fact that you're friends will be suspicious enough for some, but if it becomes widely known that you're together, it could ruin you."

_There are rumors already,_ Selphie thought, remembering the day they'd been asked to appear before the International Assembly.

"Are you suggesting I break up with Rinoa?" Squall asked, his voice dropping an octave.

"No," Edea said. "I'm suggesting that you two keep things on a platonic level when you're with anyone other than your friends. You need to convince people that the safest place for Rinoa to be is among SeeDs and that you're prepared to do your duty if push comes to shove. You need to appear detached from the situation so everyone will rest assured she won't get out of control should anything happen. Understand?"

It was hard to watch Squall go through this. Selphie tried not to look and make him even more uncomfortable, but she couldn't help it. Assuming Rinoa made it out of the tribunal a free woman, she and Squall would go on to face much worse. There weren't a lot of people out there who would look upon a Sorceress favorably, and that number was even smaller among SeeDs.

How would they react to Rinoa living among them now that her condition was known all over the world?

Squall had fallen silent, but Selphie knew he was thinking along the same lines she was. She didn't envy what he had to look forward to, and she was determined to help them both out any way she could.

The young Commander touched the petal of a daisy with his gloved finger and sighed. "Yeah."

* * *

_**November 12**__**th**__** 4997 M.G.**_

_**Galbadia Garden**_

Seifer swung the gunblade a few times, trying to get used to its weight and the feel of the handle against his gloved hand. It wasn't Hyperion, but it was well-crafted and the design was close enough. It would fit his fighting style, giving him and Jonah some time to work on his training until he was able to reclaim his own weapon.

_Until,_ he mentally scoffed. _The old man has me thinking I'm walking out of this,_ he thought wryly. Ever since he had accepted Meric's deal, Seifer had been repeating a self-preservation mantra in his head. He shouldn't get too used to this sort of freedom; in a few weeks, it could all be be taken away from him as fast as it had come.

Still, it was hard to work with Jonah's team and not feel at least a little confident about the outcome of the trial. Seifer never probed, never asked how Jonah knew the kind of people he did and why the hell he was investing so much money and time on someone who could very well be behind bars soon, or even worse, get pardoned and then walk away. Every time Seifer mentioned that very fact, Jonah merely grinned and said: "We'll see."

Despite his better judgment, Seifer watched his optimism grow every day as a high-profile lawyer prepared him for the trial, and Jonah himself spent every waking hour he could spare on therapy or training sessions with him. Seifer had a hard time feeling anything other than grateful to the man, though he couldn't completely shake off the fear that he would one day pay a heavy price if he ultimately trusted him.

To top all that confusion off, it felt very eerie, living in Galbadia Garden again. Not only because of the memories, but because Seifer remembered it as a place brimming with cadets. Right now, the academy was less than half-full, and most of the residents were members of the staff. Students had been transferred to other Gardens and some of those who had already graduated had left the SeeD life to join armies all over the world. He was the only person in those walls actually doing any learning, and the two men had the whole training center to themselves.

It wasn't very different from Balamb Garden's training center. Bigger, perhaps a little richer when it came to the variety of beasts one could find there, but it was styled similarly. Instead of the tropical forest B-Garden's training center resembled, this one had been modeled after a Galbadian forest.

Seifer watched the trees and wildlife around him, a sense of anticipation enveloping him. So far, he had only worked in the gym, giving his muscles a well-needed reminder of the constant strain they had once been under. The first few days had been hell, but soon, he was back into his old routines and happier for it. He had always appreciated the invigorating feeling exercise left him with, something he had sorely missed all those months.

Today, however, promised to be an even more interesting day. They were training with weapons for the first time. He had no idea what kind of weapon Jonah carried, and had just been wondering about that, when the older man walked through the doors of the training center, sword in hand.

It occurred to Seifer that this was the very first time he was seeing Jonah without a SeeD uniform. The headmaster looked radically different when clad in a simple pair of sweatpants and t-shirt. For one thing, it made him look younger; the outfit shaved nearly a decade off of him easily, and it made Seifer very aware of the fact that for his age, Jonah was very fit and compact. Clearly, he exercised daily.

Seifer eyed the Esthari sword in his hands. "You're a swordsman, then?" he asked.

Jonah nodded, and came to a stop right across him.

"A katana," Seifer pointed out, taking a few steps closer to admire the elaborate scabbard that hung from his belt. "Can I?"

"May I," Jonah corrected him, and unsheathed the sword, handing it to Seifer.

The blond plunged his gunblade on the ground to secure it and held up the katana, watching as the smooth, silver blade it reflected the sunlight. He ran a finger over the edge very carefully. When he pulled his thumb back, a fat droplet of blood was shining on the tip; the weapon was razor-sharp. Katana hilts were always covered with woven cotton in a distinct rhombic pattern; Jonah's was dark blue. The sword's blade also bore a set of Esthari ideograms, which Seifer knew were supposed to be the owner's signature.

Stepping back, he twisted his wrist to test the weight and then performed a few attacks. It definitely wasn't his style, but he could appreciate how perfectly balanced the sword was. Whoever made it had poured his heart and soul into creating an incredible weapon; it was a work of art. "Nice," he said, nodding. "But is it really fair to pair a sword against a gunblade?" he said, and handed the katana back to Jonah.

"You won't be using the gun part while we train," Jonah said. "Just simple swordfighting. From what little I've seen you train you have the aim and timing down well enough when it comes to firing a shot-"

"Well _enough_?" Seifer repeated, stung by the comment. _Well enough? I could hit a bulls-eye with one hand while drinking with the other and all the while be dancing on the spot, you fucking relic. _

"But your swordsmanship is a little rusty," Jonah went on. "We'll work on that first and worry about the gun part of your gunblade later."

_Rusty... I'll have you limping out of here in no time,_ Seifer seethed. "Let's go then," he said, pulling the gunblade off the ground.

"Stand in position," Jonah said, putting both hands on the hilt of his katana. He lifted his back elbow into a forty five degree angle and held his front hand nearly vertical to his body. His weight was on his back leg, which was slightly bent, while the front was slightly stretched.

"Seriously?" Seifer drawled. "You're gonna go all theatrical on me? Stand on one leg and hold up your index and middle fingers together or something?" he said, recalling nights in Balamb Garden when he and Raijin would watch hilariously bad dubs of old Esthari movies made before the grand continent sealed itself off. The fighters cast in such films were almost always showy; it didn't help that they also tended to give a long-winded speech before every battle, half of which was spent with the original actor's mouth flapping around in silence as the voice-actor had run out of things to say.

"Prepare," Jonah said, not moving a single inch.

Seifer shook his head. "All right..." he said and held up his right hand straight, gunblade pointed at Jonah.

The older man blinked. "What the hell is this?"

"What's what?"

"This... stance."

"It's... my stance. What else should it be?"

"And this works for you?" Jonah asked in disbelief. "Really?"

"Yes, really," Seifer insisted, getting angrier by the moment. "Come the fuck on."

"I know President Loire made a very popular b-movie once fighting in that very stance, but it's not really-"

"GET ON WITH IT!" Seifer yelled, feeling his cheeks burn all of a sudden.

Jonah sighed and resumed his position. "Ready? Go!"

Though he usually waited for his opponent to charge –and Squall was actually dumb enough to do so every single time- for once, Seifer charged first. He knew he shouldn't let what Jonah said to him affect the fight, but he had never been one to bury his anger in battle. If anything, it gave him an edge. No wonder Gibbs, one of his Instructors, had always marveled at how easy it was for him to pile up enough adrenaline to perform a SeeD's original, most powerful attack, colloquially known as a Limit Break.

He brought the gunblade up in a broad sweep on Jonah's right, giving him no room to duck. The Headmaster released one hand from the hilt and brought his katana to meet Seifer's blade. The two swords collided, and Jonah supported his slimmer, more fragile weapon with the other hand pressed against the flat side of the blade. Despite the older man's strength, Seifer was younger, and the momentum of his movement was enough to push Jonah backwards.

Without losing his cool, Jonah pulled the katana back, giving it a full three-sixty turn and bringing it up again right under Seifer's neck. The blond took a step back, barely dodging in time so as not to earn a scrape on his chin.

But before Seifer could stand back up straight, he saw Jonah flick his wrist once, and next thing he knew, he received a sharp jab between the eyes with the hilt of the katana. Quick as a cat, Jonah twisted on the spot and delivered the final blow by sweeping the ground with his leg and tripping him.

Without even fully realizing what had happened, Seifer found himself back-first on the ground, the tip of Jonah's katana sitting less than an inch away from his nose.

_What the fuck just happened?_

Jonah pulled the katana to his side and leaned over Seifer's fallen form, grinning wryly. "What, you thought I was going to go easy on you?"

Seifer gave Jonah an incredulous look. Had he just been beaten by someone more than twice his age? "But you… I didn't…" he spluttered, unable to believe the person standing above him had just handed his ass to him on a plate in less than two minutes.

"Oh, I've never seen him fight, plus he's twice my age or more, so he _must_ suck at it. Is that what you thought?" Jonah said, running his finger over the smooth blade of the katana.

…_...Pretty much._

"You're lucky you're not fighting me in my prime," Jonah said, looking very pleased with himself. "Otherwise I would be talking to thin air right now."

"And you call _me_ cocky," Seifer spat out, and scrambled up on his feet. This was a fluke. It _had_ to be. He was a little out of practice, and katanas were swords suited for quick swordfighting. A gunblade was at a disadvantage, being a much heavier weapon, but he had trained against lighter swords before, knew how to work with the slower speed and exploit a swift sword's weaknesses. Once he cleared his head a bit, it would all come back to him.

It _had_ to.

"That was merely a warm-up, old man. You haven't seen _nothing_ yet."

"Well then, I take it back," Jonah said, getting into position again. "Show me."

_Let him come to you,_ Seifer thought, raising his gunblade once more. _Let him come to you and stay calm._

The second time around, he did better. It took Jonah five minutes to bring him down.

He had been doing well, up to the point where Jonah whipped out his scabbard, smacked Seifer on the side of his face, kneed him in the gut and gave him a headbutt that sent him down on the ground. As he lay there, covered in dirt, humiliated and in pain, he contemplated all the ways he could murder the man, slowly and painfully. _The bastard actually pulled out his _scabbard_ to knock me out,_ Seifer thought ruefully, rolling over to the side to spit a mouthful of blood on the ground.

"Pathetic," Jonah said, re-sheathing his sword.

_Number two hundred and seventy four: give him a swirly till he drowns._

"You know, the first I ever heard of you was before the Second Sorceress War," Jonah said, pacing back and forth, his hands folded behind his waist. "You were praised as one of the two gunblade specialists of Balamb Garden. Massively talented, unprecedented. It was said that you and Squall Leonhart were equally skilled, and even though he made it to SeeD and you didn't, a match between the two of you would still end in a tie. I can now fully appreciate how little truth there is to be found in that rumor."

_Number two hundred and ninety nine: cut his balls off and make him choke on them._

"You could never _hope_ to reach the amount of skill Leonhart has in his _pinky_."

"I've beaten him before," Seifer growled from his spot on the ground, glaring at the branches of the tree above. _Leafy little sons of bitches. _"And I can do it again."

"Oh, I recognize this," Jonah said, grinning. "The five stages of grief: Stage one, denial."

"Spare me the psychological bullcrap, you fucker."

"Stage two, anger. Should I be expecting bargaining any time soon?"

Seifer looked up at the Headmaster, feeling every bit of gratitude he had ever had for the man quickly fade away.

Jonah smiled at him, an infuriating smile that made Seifer wish he had junctioned spells this morning. "Do you want to know why you were beaten during the war?"

"There were _three_ of them against me," Seifer said, sitting up. "It doesn't take a fucking genius to do the math."

"Well… I can't deny that much is true," Jonah conceded. "I'll give you that. However… you _did_ fight Leonhart solo just once, did you not?" he asked, looking at Seifer out of the corner of his eye.

Seifer became very interested in dusting his clothes off at that moment.

"Seifer? Do you want to know why you lost?"

"No, but I'm sure you'll enlighten me," Seifer said, starting to get up on his feet.

"You lost because you are an arrogant simpleton with delusions of grandeur."

The tall blond chuckled. "Y'know what I've always hated about you prudes? You can't even insult someone properly. You have to hide behind big, fancy words to do it," he said, waving his arms around ostentatiously. "You still get the same satisfaction with simpler words, y'know. Watch me: Jerk, pussy, asshole, dickhead, cocksucker. Here's what's even better: Yo momma so smelly, even the Marlboro said daaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn."

Jonah rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"Yo momma so fat, they had to tame a Behemoth for her to ride to work."

"Really, now…"

"Yo momma so stupid, she thought Gysahl Greens would make a good salad."

"Trying to insult me is not going to make me change the subject."

"Yo momma so ugly, she once petrified a Cockatrice on sight."

"Seifer…"

"Yo momma so stupid, she studied for a drug tes-"

Having had enough, Jonah pulled his katana out of the scabbard and threw it toward Seifer. The blade whistled past his face before he had time to move a single muscle and landed, tip-first, on the tree behind him. Seifer froze in place, realizing that the weapon had missed him by less than an inch.

"Next time, I won't miss," Jonah said, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"Next time, you-"

"Enough!" Jonah thundered. "Is it really that easy to provoke you? One or two spiteful little jabs and you're ready to draw blood? I thought you were smarter than that. Unless of course it's the comparison to your old enemy that gets you so riled up."

Seifer looked away, staring hard at the ground. _I'm done with this shit,_ he thought. _I'd rather rot in jail than listen to that psycho drone on and on about Commander Puberty._

"Squall Leonhart—"

"ENOUGH about _fucking_ Leonhart! You're talking to ME!" Seifer yelled, jabbing a finger at his chest.

"I'm talking _about_ you. The fact that he's far superior—"

"The HELL he is!"

"The sooner you _shut up_ and accept that little fact, the sooner we can begin your training," Jonah pressed on. "I asked you earlier on, and I'll ask you again: Do you want to know why he beat you?"

"I thought it was because I was a 'delusional ass' or somesuch," Seifer said, removing his training gloves. He wasn't going to sit and listen to this much longer. In less than an hour, he was planning on getting on the first train out of there, judge's orders be damned. If he was going to go down, he would do it fighting, not sitting behind the stand, spluttering out excuses and apologies like a good little boy.

"Precisely. And while _you_ were basking in the glory of being chosen by Sorceress Edea as her Knight, do you know what he did?"

"Jerked off to pictures of Rinoa?" Seifer drawled, throwing his jacket on.

Jonah, undeterred by the fact that Seifer was about to leave the training center, went on. "He _trained_. When you left Garden, it was true you and him were at the same level. Back then, you could have beaten him, perhaps. But all you did was attend parades and follow your little Sorceress around like an ornament."

With his back turned to the Headmaster, Seifer stood still, frowning. A small, tiny part of him knew this was true. He had gotten too sure of himself, too proud to keep on training, but Squall hadn't.

"You thought you were strong enough if you were chosen by her, so there was no need to try any longer," Jonah said. "Leonhart didn't. He trained, and got better. And then he beat you. And beat you again, and again, and again, and got even better. If you were to fight him today, right now, you would die within the blink of an eye.

You're not even twenty, I'm fifty four and I can bring you down in a matter of seconds. You may be the only other gunblade specialist in existence right now, but the gap between you and the best is gargantuan."

"Well, if he got so good and I got so lazy," Seifer spat back, only now turning to acknowledge Jonah. "Why did I even stand a chance back we fought one-on-one? I stood my ground against fucking Leonhart; I nearly even got him a couple of times. You're not—"

"That's because you have _ten_ times the stamina he does!"

A praise, even one uttered with as much spite and anger, was not what Seifer had expected. It didn't take a master psychologist to see that Jonah had been leading to something with all the verbal assault, but Seifer never thought any compliments would have been included. He stared at Jonah over his shoulder, frowning in confusion.

The Headmaster's face softened all of a sudden. He was a hard man, not one to sugar coat situations, but Seifer guessed his expression must've looked so lost he decided to go a little easier on him.

"He's lighter and faster then you," Jonah explained. "But what you lack in speed, you make up in brute force and stamina. You're reckless and impulsive; he's careful and precise. The fact that you're unpredictable and imaginative, however, _can_ work to your advantage as long as you learn when to take risks and when to fall back. All you lack is the training, the discipline and a good shove up your arse to wake up. You're Squall Leonhart's equal. Start acting the part or get your pathetic, crippled self out of my sight."

Seifer's eyes fell on the door of the training center. It would be easier, _so_ much easier to simply walk away. Staying meant that he would have to face everything, issues he knew were rooted deep within his psyche. Staying meant that he would have to trust this stranger, body and mind, and bear his soul out for him to dissect and piece back together again.

There was no guarantee, none whatsoever that this man had his best interests at heart. Everybody in his life was after a pound of flesh. SeeD, Ultimecia, the jury holding his future freedom in their hands. Who was to say he wouldn't sorely regret the decision to follow Jonah?

_"You have _nothing_. I'm offering _something_. Do the smart thing and accept."_

Turning around, Seifer tossed his jacket back on the ground and reached for his fallen gunblade.

_I must be going out of my mind._

Right across him, Jonah smiled.

* * *

_**November 29**__**th**__** 4999 M.G.**_

_**Esthar City, Esthar**_

"I don't want to hear it!" Quistis said, as Selphie opened her mouth to let out what was most likely a torrent of 'What the hell where you thinking's and other such complaints.

Quistis had just returned from her walk with the Archbishop, and last they'd seen each other, Selphie had had no qualms about showing how much she disapproved.

The blonde climbed into the van next to her, where a few more SeeDs who had participated in the mission were already seated, waiting to return to Garden.

The younger girl crossed her arms in front of her chest, scowling. "Did you have _fun_?" she drawled.

"Tons," Quistis quipped back and relaxed into her seat, eager to get back to her dorm. The experience of talking to the Archbishop had been an intense and exciting affair indeed, but the novelty of it had temporarily worn off when she finally felt the weight of everything that had happened crash on her shoulders.

She could go back to daydreaming once she'd had a shower and a good meal.

The back doors of the van slipped shut and the engine roared into life as Quistis sank into her seat, exhausted.

Next to her, the younger SeeDs who had been deployed in the perimeter of the square were speaking animatedly, discussing the mission. Most of them appeared to be shaken up but excited all the same. Quistis guessed that for many, it had been their first real assignment.

She smiled at the fire in their eyes and their fervent chatter. They reminded her a little of herself back when she'd first made it to SeeD and was sent on her first missions. She didn't envy what they would go through once they had to face their first difficult decisions, but they would all look back to this moment with fondness a few years later.

Her reminiscence was interrupted when the van came to a sharp halt. Every SeeD in the back of the van swerved in their seat, nearly slipping down to the floor.

"What the hell-?" Selphie said, and stood up to go talk to the driver.

"What's going on?" Quistis asked. "Why have we stopped?"

Selphie held up a hand to wordlessly ask Quistis to wait. While she spoke to the driver in hushed tones, Quistis noticed the SeeD in the passenger's seat had stepped outside. When she returned, Selphie told the younger SeeDs to stay in their seats and calm down, then motioned Quistis outside.

The blonde followed Selphie and together they pushed the back doors of the van open.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"The driver says there's someone blocking the road," Selphie replied. "You'd think one SeeD would be able to handle this, but apparently, he can't get him to move."

"Why all the secrecy for a civilian?" Quistis asked, closing the doors of the van once they were both outside.

"The idiot used magic," Selphie said, cringing.

"The civilian or the SeeD?"

"The SeeD."

"Oh, great," Quistis said, groaning. As if the day hadn't held enough excitement, now they would have to find a way to placate a very angry citizen or face charges for assault.

The two women made their way around the van and over to the front, where the SeeD and the civilian in question were standing in the middle of the road, causing quite the traffic jam. People waiting behind the SeeD van were already honking their horns in irritation for the hold-up.

Quistis recognized the SeeD as Elan Bolt. He was relatively new, but she wasn't in the mood to forgive such amateur mistakes right now. One of the firs things a cadet was taught was to never resort to magic unless necessary, especially when facing civilians.

The civilian was an old man dressed in rags. Judging by the dirt on his hair and skin and the skeletal look of his body, Quistis guessed he was a homeless man. He didn't appear to be phased at all by the well-dressed, angry SeeD before him. Quistis had to question whether the man understood Balamese at all, but even so, he was regarding the SeeD with a curious expression, rather than a frightened one.

"What's going on here?" Selphie asked, looking from the SeeD to the old man and back again.

"He refuses to move!" Bolt exclaimed, turning to Selphie. "I tried to do this calmly, but he wouldn't listen and I didn't want to resort to violence-"

"And using magic doesn't count as violence in your world?" Selphie drawled, shaking her head in disbelief.

"It was an accident," Bolt replied sheepishly. "I was trying to get him to move and-"

Selphie waved the SeeD off and turned to the man. "Sir? Are you all right?" she asked. "Were you hurt?"

The old man shifted his gaze over to her but said nothing. He simply looked at her with the same curious expression he had given the SeeD.

"See?" Bolt said. "He won't say a thing, I couldn't tell-"

"Shut up," Selphie said, sighing. "Sir, do you understand me?" she asked the civilian. She received no response. "Quisty, you know a little Esthari, don't you?"

Quistis nodded, stepping up between Bolt and Selphie. "Let me try," she said, and gave the old man a kind smile. "Daijoubu desu ka?" she asked, trying to make sure he was all right.

At first, she thought the man had finally understood and this had all been nothing but a language barrier issue. But the look he gave Quistis was not one of relief or recognition of her words, but rather a livid one.

"You!" he hissed, narrowing his eyes at her and pointing at her with his index finger. "It is you!"

Quistis blinked. "Uhhh..."

"You stopped it," the old man went on, advancing on her. Though he was clearly Esthari, there were no traces of an accent in his voice when he spoke Balamese. "You rescued the Eagle."

"Excuse me?" Quistis asked, completely dumbfounded.

"WHY DID YOU STOP IT?" he shrieked, and made a move to launch himself at her, clearly intending to do violence.

Perhaps he had forgotten who he was surrounded by, or perhaps he was too far gone to care, but before he could make another step, Selphie put a firm hand on his shoulder, holding him back, and took out her nunchakus with the other.

"Calm yourself, sir," she said in a commanding, sharp voice. "Or I'll _make_ you calm down."

The old man didn't try to move again, but he didn't tear his gaze off Quistis either. The look he was giving her was one of pure loathing. "Ruined... Everything ruined," he said, gritting his teeth. "All this effort, all this planning... it was all for nothing. Now the Eagle flies free again."

"Hold on a sec," Selphie said, scrutinizing him. "I know you, I've seen you before. You're that lunatic who was spouting nonsense about the end of the world during the protests the other day."

For the first time since he'd laid eyes upon her, the man looked at Selphie as if he not only understood her, but pitied her. "Your friend... She will be the end of us all. Destroy her while you still can," he said, reaching out to grab the front of Selphie's uniform, begging her to take him seriously.

"Get off me," she said, cringing. "Go on, shoo. Stick around a moment longer and I'll hand you over to the police, got it?"

Shaking his head in disbelief, the man let go of her and began to walk away, muttering to himself.

"Hyne, this place is filled with crazies," Selphie said, watching him depart.

Quistis had witnessed the whole exchange silently, wondering what on earth had just happened. The logical part of her said that this had been nothing but the ramblings of a poor, insane man. But her gut, her instinct, knew that there was something very wrong about this whole situation. Like there was something right under her nose that she was missing, but she couldn't-

_The Eagle,_ she suddenly thought, blanching. _Code name for the Archbishop. When Selphie called me for directions, this man had been yelling about the Eagle's downfall. He knows. He knows something about the attack._

"Don't let him go!" Quistis blurted out, whipping out her weapon. "Selphie, he knows about the attack! The _Eagle_!"

Selphie's eyes widened in realization of what Quistis was saying. At once, she swiveled around and broke into a run after the old man. Quistis followed her, her heart racing.

_He can't have gone far,_ Quistis thought, running with all her might. _But wait, he really _can't_ have gone that far,_ she thought, staring at the empty road lying ahead of them. There were no other passers-by in the vicinity, so he couldn't have blended into the crowd.

Selphie seemed to be thinking along the same lines as well. She had come to a stop, looking left and right as she panted. "What the hell...?" she said. "Where did he go? He was there just a moment ago!"

Trying to steady her breath, Quistis looked around her wildly, desperate for any clue as to where he could have disappeared to, but she couldn't find any. There was nothing but the highway in front of them and there was nowhere he could have hidden.

He had simply vanished.

* * *

**A/N: **Seifer's medical issue in the first scene is partly inspired by staceums's amazing fic _Sound of a Trembling Heart _(go read it and its sequel, like, NOW). The underlying condition in my story has nothing to do with the one she used in hers. I was planning on giving Seifer headaches instead, but after reading her story, I felt the nosebleeds were far more potent and dramatic. Major props to her for the inspiration!

The International Alliance is supposed to be the FF8 equivalent of the UN in my story.

I think many of you will be able to guess which movie inspired Seifer's dispute with the psychologist, but here's the answer anyway: _Good Will Hunting_. Concerning Seifer terrorizing the people in group therapy: While doing research for this part of the story, I re-watched the first episode of the sixth season of _House MD_, a show I love. It struck me, when I watched it again, how the way House bullied the other patients was something I could totally see Seifer doing.

The Blanche Convention mentioned by Cid refers to a convention that took place in Blanche, a city I made up for the continent of Trabia.

Jonah's line about starting at the beginning and Seifer's response are a reference to _Lost_, from the episode where Locke and Eco watch the orientation clip together and Eco tells Locke a story.

Finally (are you sick of all this crap yet? :S ), the slogan 'I believe' is a small paraphrase of 'I want to believe,' a reference to _X-Files_.

Next chapter won't have nearly as many notes, I swear xD;;;


	11. Chapter 10: Sub Rosa Pt 1

**DISCLAIMER: **The only thing I own is a couple of OCs, including Odine's long lost lovechild (jk), a sicko named Fabian Mercer. You want him? =D

**A/N:** You know, I don't believe in luck, good or bad. But the past month has made me reassess my beliefs (see the small update on my profile for more info). Today, when I _finally_ found some time to sit down and edit this thing, there was a power outage. For nearly six hours. Conclusion? Lady Luck hates me with a passion.

Anyway! This is only part one of the chapter. I was going to split it even without the month-long delay because it came out so big, but since this part was ready, I figured I'd upload it. The second part _should _be up in a few days, a week tops, but hey, with my luck, I'm not making any promises.

There's some world-building in this chapter. Mostly theories on how para-magic works, as well as various other types of magic (like a Sorceress's powers, Ellone's powers etc) and part of my take on the Sorceress-Knight link. Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 10:** Sub Rosa Pt. 1

* * *

_"Secrets are made to be found out with time." _

_**- Charles Sanford**_

_**.  
**_

_**Rusty:**__ "You'd need at least a dozen guys doing a combination of cons."  
__**Danny:**__ "Like what, do you think?"  
__**Rusty:**__ "Off the top of my head, I'd say you're looking at a Boeski, a Jim Brown, a Miss Daisy, _

_two Jethros and a Leon Spinks, not to mention the biggest Ella Fitzgerald ever." _

_**- Ocean's Eleven**_

_**

* * *

**_

Despite Manu's insistence that they should probably not push their luck more than they absolutely _had_ to, Seifer got off the SeeD vehicle taking his team back to Garden before it left the city.

Manu did have a point. If, as Seifer assumed, Squall was going to refuse to let him speak to the suspect in person, they would have to do it behind his back, risking a lot in the process. Seifer knew Squall was already watching him closely, but if their upcoming operation failed tonight, the last thing that would matter would be his taking a small detour before returning to Garden.

Besides, he didn't know how much longer they'd be staying in Esthar, so if he wanted to visit _OdiCorp Labs_, now was the best time to do it. The rest of his team would be busy enough setting up a plan to provide some alone time for Seifer and the prisoner; his presence wouldn't be missed.

Standing behind the closed door of _Lab A13_, Seifer wondered, for what was probably the hundredth time that day, why he was even doing this in the first place.

His last run-in with Fabian Mercer, head of the _MagiTech_ branch of Odine's company, had not been a pleasant one. Jonah had been the one to suggest Mercer, citing him as Odine's most prized scientist. His ideas and work on the field of magically infused technology were cutting edge, the Headmaster had insisted. All Seifer had cared about at the time was putting a stop to his growing casting issue and Mercer had more than met his expectations. Grateful though Seifer was for the solution, Mercer was not a person he would have chosen to be around if he could help it.

Like most scientists who have spent a little too much time in the lab and too little time in close proximity to actual human beings, Mercer was a few legs short of a Hexadragon. Brilliant when it came to his work, but completely clueless as to why his ideas and suggestions could often make his subjects recoil in horror. Odine had taught his favorite student well when it came to _Mad Scientist 101_, and some speculated that this was easily a case of the student surpassing the master. Seifer had never met Odine personally, but knowing Mercer, it wasn't hard to believe that statement.

Cringing at the knowledge of what awaited him inside, he knocked on the door. There was no answer on the other end, but he entered anyway.

The lab was just like Seifer remembered it; as clean as a hospital and colder than a Trabian winter. As a biologist first and an engineer second, Mercer always worked in cold temperatures. He never made a mess, always kept things tidy. There was a very assassin-like quality about the way he operated; he left no traces behind and went on about his daily routine with surgical precision.

At the moment, he was hunched over a microscope, analyzing a sample of something Seifer probably didn't want to know about. Upon the sound of the door opening, he looked up. His face immediately contorted into a broad, toothy grin and he stood up from his stool to greet his guest.

He was of medium height, slim and gangly. His face belonged to a young man in his late teens, but his chin-length blond hair was already heavily streaked with grey. His hollow cheeks and icy grey eyes did little to help make his face more genial; if anything, whenever Seifer felt that pair of eyes on him, he had the distinct impression he was being looked at the way a predator would observe his prey.

"Well, well, well…" Mercer said, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "Seifer Almasy. When they brought you to me, you weighed about as much as a skeleton. _Now_ look at you, boy: the picture of health."

Seifer thought it was a little patronizing of Mercer to be calling him a boy, when Mercer himself appeared to be about eighteen. Appeared being the keyword here; rumor had it that Odine was so utterly smitten with his most promising associate's intellect that he was willing to share his much-coveted anti-age serum with him. For all Seifer knew, Mercer could very well be into his thirties, maybe even forties. Odine himself looked fifty, but records of his experiments went all the way back to eighty years ago.

"Yeah, I've been good. Been eating my greens and all," Seifer drawled. There were very few things that creeped him out on this planet, but Mercer definitely made the top three. He wasn't willing to stay in there longer than he had to, so he cut straight to the chase. "I asked Jonah-"

"Yes, yes, I spoke to Mr. Meric," Mercer said, waving a hand dismissively. "We'll get to what you want. The only question worth a damn is what _I'm_ getting in return."

Seifer arched an eyebrow at that; Mercer had never asked for money before. Then again, considering how he had been compensated last time they'd met, cash might be the lesser of two evils. On the other hand, paying for something he wasn't even sure _why_ he was buying was about as appealing to Seifer as the prospect of letting Mercer get his grubby paws all over him.

"What do you want?" Seifer asked, fearing he already knew the answer.

"Oh, the list of things I want from you would fill several books," Mercer said, grinning. "But I get the feeling you'll be requiring my assistance again in the near future, so I think I'd be content with as little as a tiny spittle sample. For now," he said, handing Seifer a cotton swab.

Seifer felt the overwhelming urge to aim for Mercer's eye and dish out more than a 'tiny sample.' However, as he wouldn't put it past the scientist to actually _use_ said sample, he resisted. There was no way in hell he was letting this psycho get a hold of his DNA.

"Not for sale," Seifer said, snapping the cotton swab between thumb and forefinger.

"No?" Mercer said, grinning still. "How about a few private sessions then?"

"What do you mean?"

"Magic always leaves a trace, you know," Mercer said, giving Seifer the one-over. "I can still see the marks those little knots left you with," he said, holding his right hand out like the bars controlling a marionette and wiggled his fingers. "They still sting, don't they?"

A muscle in Seifer's jaw clenched.

"Mmm-hmmm... I'll bet they do," Mercer went on. "What glorious strings they must have been, to still affect you so. But then... snip, snip they went, and yet you're still standing. I need to know why. Hence the sessions."

_Of course._ The Sorceress-Knight connection. Though Mercer and Odine prided themselves in being the foremost authorities on magic in this world, they knew very little about the complicated relationship between a Sorceress and her chosen Knight. Every person who was in a position to tell them more was either very familiar with their methods and as such refused to say a thing, or they were dead.

"You've asked before, and I said no," Seifer growled. "It'll _always_ be no."

The grin faded somewhat from Mercer's face, but he pressed on, undeterred. "I'm surprised. I thought you'd have been curious to know as well."

"Curious about _what_?"

"You should be _maggot-food_, boy," Mercer said, frowning. "Deader than a doornail. Every other Knight in the history of mankind fell when his Sorceress did. Adel's Knight perished when she was exiled in space even though she didn't die for another seventeen years. The mere _distance_ between them was enough to bring about his death. How can _you_ still be here? You're an anomaly, through and through. Your very existence goes against nature."

Seifer was painfully aware of that little factoid. Most people not in the know assumed a Sorceress's Knight was merely an instrument of destruction. Nothing but a warrior, choosing to join the forces of a Sorceress and protect her. Seifer knew better. So did Odine and so did Mercer. What they didn't know was what kind of bond existed between the two, what sort of symbiosis dictated that the Knight's life would end the moment his Sorceress was gone.

He suspected the Sorceresses themselves didn't fully understand the mechanics either. Choosing a Knight seemed to be an intuitive, accidental process, rather than a deliberate one. Seifer had never believed in fate or the concept of soulmates until he experienced Knighthood. He still could not speak with certainty on the matter, but his gut instinct told him there was more at work there than simple choice.

He had never spoken of the matter to anyone, not even Edea, and he certainly wouldn't confide in Mercer about it. _Fuck this_, he thought. _I refuse to play boy scout if it means having to hear this psycho drone on and on about how I should be six feet under. This was a bad idea in the first place._

"Nice talking to you again, arsewipe," Seifer spat out and turned his heel. "Careful not to choke on Odine's dick, now."

_What was I _thinking_? _Seifer admonished himself. The only reason he had put up with Mercer in the past and hadn't skewered him with Hyperion was because he had needed him. That and Jonah's arms restraining him, followed by a particularly strong Sleep spell. The little bottom-feeder was a genius, no arguments there, but if Odine was a ten on the creepiness scale, then Mercer was over nine fucking thousand.

He couldn't justify the self-flagellating wish to be in the same room -hell, even the same _city-_ as Mercer when there was no good reason to be. He couldn't even understand what had made him set the appointment in the first place.

_An unexpected surge of sympathy, that's what_, his conscience whispered back at him, a little appalled at the very mention of the word sympathy.

He knew what was happening to Quistis. He didn't know why, but he knew what. Despite popular claims to the opposite, he did have a heart, and if there was a way he could prevent someone from going through what he had, he would do it. Even if that someone was Squall, or Messenger Girl, or whoever. Hell, he'd even do it for Chickenwuss. Though he'd have to balance the sickeningly saccharine act with an atomic wedgie –the one where the waistband actually went over the head, which, when it came to the Wuss, wasn't even that high.

In Trepe's case, he would have probably asked her to go behind Xu's back and get his driving license reinstated in return. That bitch had barred him from operating any SeeD vehicle until, as she put it, 'she felt like it.' _Besides, I kind of owe her. She _did_ keep her mouth shut about Figaro. Though it probably has more to do with the furball's cuteness than it has to do with me,_ he thought. _Well... No use thinking about it now, I'm not going back-_

"Oh get over yourself, you don't owe me anything," Mercer said, letting out a sigh, just as Seifer was approaching the exit. "Mr. Meric already paid for whatever it is you want."

Seifer turned to look at Mercer over his shoulder. "He did?" he asked, more than a little surprised. Jonah was probably the most generous man he knew, but even he did not go about wasting money left and right unless he knew exactly what the expense entailed. _Does he really trust me that much?_

"Yes, I was only joking before." Mercer said.

Seifer knew that he most definitely hadn't been joking, but he was relieved that he could get what he wanted without owing anything to Mercer. He had half a mind to pummel him anyway for the previous interrogation, but he decided against it. Sociopath or not, the little bastard was damn handy.

"So what'll it be, then?" Mercer asked, now looking bored since he couldn't torment Seifer with questions and tests about his link to Ultimecia. "You want another set?"

"Yeah."

"I can take a look at the old ones, if you want," Mercer said, pointing at Seifer's wrists. "See if I can fix them. Come to think of it, I was expecting them to last much longer. What did you do?"

The notion that he might have somehow screwed up didn't even cross Mercer's head, apparently. If the bandages he had created for Seifer had been malfunctioning, it must've somehow been _his_ fault. "The old ones work fine," Seifer said, a little defensively. "I need a new model."

"Oh?"

"Ice this time."

Mercer's frown deepened. It was clear as day from his expression that he could see Seifer wasn't telling him the whole story. "Ice. So you're also having trouble with ice spells?"

"Yes," Seifer replied.

"This doesn't make sense..." Mercer muttered, scratching his head. "If you were losing your ability to cast for whatever reason, it wouldn't happen like this. You wouldn't be able to cast spells period, not one group at a time."

There was no way to outsmart Mercer on this. Not when they were playing on his field of expertise, and Seifer wasn't dumb enough to try and concoct a lie more elaborate than what he could handle. Feigning indifference, he simply shrugged.

"You don't look worried," Mercer insisted. "When you first came to me, you were losing five pints of blood per day and you look terrified."

Seifer rolled his eyes at that. "Exaggerate much?" he said. It was true that when he saw Mercer he'd been in bad shape. The nosebleeds were still a recurring phenomenon at the time, and his injuries from casting mishaps had weakened him considerably. But Mercer's statement was stretching the truth to a breaking point.

"Still," Mercer said. "You don't look the least bit bothered this time."

"Look, can you make these or not?" Seifer said, sighing. If they kept at it for too long, Mercer would probably reach the right conclusion. "I don't have all day."

"Of course I _can_, I'm just-"

"You have your money and you have your order. When will they be ready?" Seifer said, in a tone that suggested he would not tolerate any more discussion on the matter.

Curious though he may be, Mercer was also smart enough not to pressure a man who could beat the snot out of him. "In a month, give or take a few days," he said, conceding. He didn't look convinced the slightest bit, but an order was an order, and Seifer had yet to meet a high achiever whose greatest interests didn't involve money.

"Good. Call me so I can forward a shipping address when it's time," Seifer said, and left the lab before Mercer had time to say anything.

He was already speeding down the hallway as the door slid shut behind him. It was only when he knew he was out of sight and earshot that he stopped long enough to slouch against a wall and breathe a sigh of relief.

_Bloody Trepe better get that license approved the moment I tell her to,_ Seifer thought, his heart still racing.

Little though he liked to be reminded of the War, he was even less keen to be reminded of his role as a Knight. Death was something he had grown immune to even before he made his first kill as a cadet; it didn't keep him awake at nights. The memory of what it had been like to share Ultimecia's mind did. The memory of what it had felt like when she died did.

And it wasn't all horrors either.

_The power. The connection, the intimacy of sharing every thought and feeling with someone... _

The memories of it all brought a pleasant shudder down his spine, but along with reminiscence, came a trickle of something warm down his lips.

As fast as the recollections came they disappeared, crushed under the weight of something more powerful: terror. _No... No, no, NO._ With a shaking hand, Seifer reached up and swept his fingers across his upper lip. Blood.

_Not again_, his mind screamed at him. _It should be over. It _has_ to be. I fought the damn thing, I fucking BEAT it. Not again, not again..._

_

* * *

_

Squall gave the door before him a gentle rap. The familiar voice on the other side gave him permission to enter, so he did.

The President's office was a room he'd come to know well over the past two years. It was also a room he'd come to loathe. Some of the worst memories of his life had taken shape behind those walls.

…...

_"I'm sure you're wondering why I asked to see you in private," Laguna said._

_Not for the first time, Squall felt uncomfortable being in that office. Esthar's obsession with everything see-through had never made much sense to him. The sight of a city made entirely of a glass-like substance was impressive at first, he'd admit, but he'd always felt vertigo when walking down its streets. With every step he took, he feared that the glass would give away under his weight and he would plunge down, down, down to his death._

_Squall stared at his own reflection against the floor. Below his feet, he could see the entire inner structure of the Presidential palace. How anyone could do any serious thinking in this room was beyond him. Then again, he had been inside Laguna's head and he could attest to the fact that the man wasn't one of the world's greatest thinkers._

_"Not really," he said, looking away. He decided to focus his gaze on Laguna's ornate desk instead._

_"I... well..." Laguna began, rubbing the back of his neck. It was clear he had been expecting a different answer, one that would perhaps facilitate this conversation. "It's not a mission, if that's what you thought."_

_Squall looked at him questioningly. "What else is there to talk about?" he asked. _

_The President's hands shook as he wrung them together. He wouldn't meet Squall's eyes, nor would he stay still. He paced back and forth in front of his desk for a couple of minutes, looking troubled._

_"Did something happen to Ellone?" Squall asked, suddenly fearing the worst._

_"No," Laguna said, shaking his head. "Elle's fine. You can see her later, she- Ugh. Look. There's no easy way to say this. If there was, believe me, I'd be all for it, but there isn't, so..."_

_"What are you-?"_

_"I'm your dad. Raine is your mother and I'm your father." _

…...

Squall was relieved to find both Rinoa and Ellone in there. Every time Laguna summoned him to his office, he always feared they would be alone and would have to comment on the metaphorical behemoth in the room. Laguna had tried to do this many times in the past, since Squall had left the office the day of the revelation without so much as a word, but the Commander always refused to address the matter.

For all he knew, Laguna had given up on trying to arrange private time for the two of them, but Squall had yet to drop his guard.

Rinoa and Ellone were sitting on the couch next to Laguna's desk, engaged in conversation. The President himself was on the phone, his back turned to them. When Squall closed the door behind him, Laguna looked over his shoulder once and gave him a curt wave. He pointed towards the couch and returned to his phone call. He was still dressed in his suit, but he had loosened the tie around his neck. From time to time, he would tug it and grimace as if he wanted nothing more than to hang himself with the damn thing.

Ellone stood up as soon as Squall approached and hurried over to draw him into a tight hug.

"I saw the whole thing on the news," she said when Squall wrapped his arms around her. "Were you hurt?"

Squall drew back from the hug and shook his head.

"All in a day's work?" Ellone said, grinning.

"More or less," Squall replied. "Are you feeling better?"

When he and Rinoa had visited her earlier that day she had been bed-bound, looking slightly pale. She had insisted it was only a touch of the flu, though Squall couldn't help but feel a little skeptical over how both Edea and Ellone seemed to have fallen ill at the same time when they had been perfectly healthy the previous day.

He suspected the reason for their absence was more of a political nature, rather than poor health. Edea avoided public appearances like the plague –understandably so- and though Ellone was not a figure known to the people for anything other than being the President's niece, the fact alone that people like Dr. Odine knew she existed was reason enough to keep her hidden.

"A little, thanks," Ellone said, smiling at him. "Have a seat. Uncle's been on the phone for nearly an hour now. Goodness knows when he's going to be done."

Squall followed her over to the couch, seating himself between her and Rinoa. He reached out for Rinoa's hand and gave it a squeeze. "You okay?" he asked.

Rinoa nodded. "Not a scratch on me."

Her voice bore no hints of displeasure, but Squall knew she was disappointed that she hadn't gotten a chance to stay in the square and help out. Before going after the gunner, Squall had asked Kiros to get both Laguna and Rinoa back to the palace. Deep down, he knew both of them were more than able to hold their own in a battle, but things would only have gotten worse if the President and the Sorceress had taken any part in today's events.

Rinoa didn't seem to fully grasp the fact that the media would have a field day at the slightest mistake she might make. _She doesn't understand that they could take her away from me,_ he thought, frowning. The rest of the world saw her as a ticking bomb, terrified of what would happen when she eventually went off. Would the SeeDs shoulder the responsibility when that happened, or would history repeat itself?

He didn't usually care what others thought, but Edea's words in Centra a good two years ago had never left him. This wasn't a matter of facing the public's displeasure, it was a matter of their own welfare. If keeping Rinoa safe meant that he had to upset her from time to time, so be it. He would shoulder the blame and not think on it for a single moment.

"Well, that's done," Laguna said, running a hand through his hair and finally putting the receiver of his phone down. "I've directed all calls to my press department to deal with everything else for the rest of the day."

"How bad is it?" Rinoa asked sympathetically.

"Not as bad as it could have been," Laguna said, leaning against his desk. "There were no casualties and the Church of Hyne has not requested an investigation."

That tidbit of information piqued Squall's interest. _No investigation?_ The head of their church had only barely escaped assassination today and they weren't going to look into it? "Why not?" Squall asked, looking up at Laguna.

"No idea," Laguna replied, shrugging. "It's a little fishy though, isn't it?"

_A little?_ "Very," Squall said. "What's the official statement?"

"There isn't one yet. The rep I spoke with said they'd address the incident on tomorrow's news. Rachmanov himself may even speak to the press," said Laguna.

Squall frowned. Was this something the church had been expecting? When Laguna had hired them, he had mentioned that there were groups in the area that openly opposed the Church of Hyne, but if they were known for going to such extremes, why would the Archbishop himself request so minimal security for his speech?

"It gets weirder," Laguna went on. "The big question on every paper tomorrow will be how an armed man got past security."

"That's something I've been wondering myself," Squall said.

"The weapon was recovered shortly after you made the arrest," Laguna explained. "Ceramic."

"That's not possible," Squall said, completely dismissing Laguna's claim without a second thought. "Ceramic weapons are a myth."

"That's what I thought, too. But the weapon we found has the gunner's prints all over it, it matches the weapon seen on snapshots taken from the surveillance feed, and the bullet fired matches the ones left in the chamber and the magazine," Laguna said.

Despite the glaring evidence, Squall found it very hard to believe this was truly the weapon that had been used for the shooting. For years upon years, every weapons manufacturer on the face of Gaia had tried to find ways to make firearms undetectable by screening devices. Every single project had failed and the few that were advertised as usable prototypes turned out to be little more than poorly executed scams.

"We're looking into all possible manufacturers, but so far, it's been fruitless," Laguna added.

"And pointless," Squall said, still not convinced the weapon merited any further investigation whatsoever. "We don't have the technology to accomplish this."

"Why can't it be done?" Rinoa asked.

"It's simple," Laguna replied. "Our scientists haven't found a way yet to make any non-metallic material hard enough so that it can be used to craft a weapon. There were rumors a while ago that a very hard ceramic material was being developed. It was originally meant for exhaust valves in auto engines and the creative team behind the project claimed it was nearly as hard as steel. The whole deal ended up being a hoax."

"What about magic?" Rinoa suggested.

"What?" Laguna asked.

"I know the use of magic is prohibited in firearms manufacturing, but if the culprit comes from an entity independent from any government, who's to say they wouldn't use magic to create such a weapon?" Rinoa explained.

While Squall was impressed with Rinoa's line of logic, he could spot the fault immediately. Scientists and rebel groups had experimented with magic in the past, but their spells were never potent enough to make a true difference. Magic could offer nothing but a temporary boost in any machine, and even if that boost was strong enough to cause substantial damage, it never lasted more than a few minutes. The nature of para-magic itself rendered it useless for such a task since it was little more than a gust of energy whose effects were only temporary.

"It's a good idea," Squall said, nodding at her. "But it doesn't work. It's been tried before. Para-magic doesn't last long enough to do much of anything."

"No, not para-magic," Rinoa said. "But what about actual spells?"

_Actual?_ Was she talking about her own magic? A Sorceress's magic? "Would that be possible?" Squall asked, sitting up. "Permanently reinforcing material through the use of magic?"

Rinoa shrugged. "I know _I_ could do it."

Her simple declaration was met with ringing silence.

"Are you saying there might be another Sorceress out there?" Laguna said, asking the question everyone in the room dreaded to ask.

"Let's not jump to conclusions..." Ellone said, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. She had been quiet through the entire conversation since she was unfamiliar with the military world and para-magic, but the matter of another Sorceress was something she could understand perfectly.

"She's right," Rinoa went on. "The world of magic isn't split between a Sorceress's spells and Dr. Odine's patent. There are spirits that can be summoned, beasts who wield magic of their own, shamans, Elle," she listed them off, pointing at Ellone who looked away. "And Hyne knows what else out there. The culprit may be something entirely different."

Squall looked at Rinoa intently as she spoke. It was true that very little was known about the nature of true magic, despite many decades' worth of research. If there was any weight in what she had just suggested, the situation was far more dire than anyone else realized.

"Enough of this ugliness," Laguna said, breaking the awkward silence that had once again spread between them.

Squall was not entirely ungrateful for the change of subject. He could see Ellone felt distinctly uncomfortable with the discussion and he didn't want to put her on the spot any longer, but there was still much to talk about concerning the morning's events. _Then again_, he realized, _It's not our business any more. We were hired to protect the President and we did that. Perhaps Seifer's guy will shed some light to all this._

"Let's talk about something a little more _fun_," Laguna said, rubbing his hands together. "I was supposed to be having dinner with the Archbishop and his company tonight, but since they took off, my kitchen staff is stuck with a mountain of food to cook and no-one to cook it for. What do you two say? Want to join me and Elle tonight?"

"Oh, please do!" Ellone agreed enthusiastically. "I haven't seen either of you for more than a few minutes in months."

"Better yet, we'll invite the whole gang," Laguna added, smiling at the elated look on Ellone's face. "Cid and Edea, too, if she's feeling up for it."

Rinoa turned to look at Squall and gave a gentle shrug.

Though the word 'gang' coming out of Laguna's mouth had disturbed him somewhat, Squall was definitely in the mood to spend time with Ellone. And if his friends were going to join them, Selphie would be more than capable of distracting Laguna for the whole evening, saving Squall from the obligation of having to make idle chatter with his father.

"Okay," Squall said. "Do you mind if we eat around eight, though? There are a few pressing matters to attend to today and I'd like to take care of it all, if possible."

"Sure thing," Laguna said, grinning.

"We'll see you at eight, then," Rinoa said. "Shall we?" she asked Squall.

"Actually, I need five more minutes of Squall's time if that's all right with you, Rinoa," Laguna said.

_Oh-oh,_ Squall thought, his mind kicking into overdrive. He had to figure out a way to wriggle out of this before Rinoa said anyth-

"Of course," she said genially. "I'll wait outside with Ellone," she added, and the two girls left the room, closing the door behind them.

Squall stared at the pale blue door long after they'd disappeared behind it, cursing them both for being so discreet and skedaddling only seconds after Laguna's request. And now... _Now I'm stuck with daddy dearest. Guh._

"Something wrong?" Squall asked, praying that this would at least end quickly. With Rinoa waiting outside, he couldn't make a hasty retreat without incurring her wrath.

"No, not really. I won't take up much of your time, don't worry," Laguna said, starting to remove his tie.

"What's up?" Squall asked.

"Well, first of all, thanks for today," Laguna began.

"What for?"

"You know... Pulling me to safety. Those are some quick reflexes."

_There we go,_ Squall thought, trying very hard to suppress a groan. It always started this way. First, Laguna would compliment him on something, try to get him to soften up, and then he'd drop the p-bomb: private time.

"Thanks. Just doing my job," Squall replied.

"Right, of course," Laguna said, toying with the tie in his hands.

"Were you...?" Squall trailed off. _Hyne, don't ask questions. It'll only take longer, don't-_ "Were you hurt?"

He shouldn't care. He didn't. Laguna could take care of himself. Squall wouldn't exactly be glad if something serious ever happened to him, but he appeared to be fine; there was no reason to ask.

"No, I'm okay. There's something else I wanted to talk to you about," Laguna went on, mercifully choosing not to linger on that matter. "I know you were hoping for a chance to talk to the shooter. This whole situation is way out of the police's league, if you ask me. If magic is involved, like Rinoa suggested, things are going to blow out of proportion."

_The mission? He wants to talk about the mission? Huh. _"The church's refusal to press charges is what worries me the most," Squall said.

"That, too," said Laguna, nodding. "I'm afraid I can't do much right now, my hands are tied. I can't involve SeeD without alarming the whole country that something bigger might be going on, nor can I secretly finance a big operation without solid evidence that there's an actual case here. But assuming anything... intriguing comes up in the investigation, would you be interested?"

A muscle twitched in Squall's jaw. Of course he would be interested. He was dying to know what mystery hid behind the assassination attempt, whether Seifer's failed mission truly had anything to do with this or not, but his SeeD training was perfectly clear on that matter: SeeD is an impartial force. Mercenaries were not allowed to show favoritism, nor were they meant to pursue answers when they had completed their mission, successfully at that.

"It's not a matter of interest," he said. "We're a mercenary force. If you hire us, we'll get on it."

"Oh come now, don't give me the cookie-cutter response you give to all your clients," Laguna said, giving him a knowing look. "I know you invest on certain cases more than you let on. The truth: would you be interested?"

"...Yes. "

"Good," Laguna said, nodding. "The moment we get something out of the guy, you'll be the first to know."

Glad though he was that Laguna had chosen to talk to him in private about something that actually mattered, Squall had to make sure sentiments hadn't been a part of this decision. What if he was being bribed? What if Laguna had decided to try and win him over by means of his work? He was glad for the opportunity to dig in a little deeper, but his conscience couldn't let this go on if all this was nothing but another one of Laguna's attempts to approach him.

"All right," Squall said. "But... just so we're clear, are you doings this because you think we'll do a good job, or because I'm... your...?"

Laguna gave a little smile. "Son?"

Squall reluctantly nodded.

"The truth?"

"Please."

"...A little bit of both," Laguna admitted. "No matter how you spin it, you're the best. The fact that you're also family is just a pleasant coincidence."

_Pleasant coincidence, _Squall repeated in his head, staring hard at Laguna. He wondered whether there was another father and son out there who had as odd a relationship as they did. _My father is partly using assassinations and political games to bribe me,_ he thought, unsure of whether he should laugh or despair. _And I'm letting him._

"Right... Um, are we... done?" Squall asked, eager to leave the President's office as soon as possible.

"Unless you have anything you wanted to talk about-"

"No," Squall hurried to say.

"All right. Well then... I'll see you tonight?"

"Yeah. See you," Squall said, and stood up, giving him a small wave. No sooner had he taken a single step toward the door, than Laguna spoke again.

"Oh, hold on a sec. If you don't have a suit for tonight, you can borrow one," he said. "We're about the same height and build, aren't we? And hey, if it it's a little loose or tight we could get it fitted. My assistant found this amazing tailor-"

_For fuck's sake, he's going to ramble on and on about suits and tailors for hours if I let him. _"Why do I need a suit?" Squall cut him off.

"I thought we could have a bit of a fancy dinner. Black tie and all," Laguna answered, looking cheerful at the prospect.

_Dress up. He's excited about dress up. _"Uh, _no,_" Squall said, without giving this a moment's thought. He was _not _going to wear a suit for this. Ellone didn't care how he looked and he was only doing this in the first place so he could see her.

"Oh come on, it will be fun," Laguna insisted. "The original event was supposed to be formal, too."

"I am _not_ wearing a suit."

"But... Ellone got a new dress for tonight and she was really excited about getting to wear it..." Laguna trailed off. He stared down at the tie in his hands, looking as if nothing in the world would sadden him more than Ellone missing the opportunity to wear her new dress.

_Oh you sneaky, sneaky bastard,_ Squall thought, his nostrils flaring. He knew Laguna genuinely cared about Ellone's happiness. He had left his wife to go rescue her, for Hyne's sake. _Left her when she needed him the most. Left me,_ he thought, but quickly banished those thoughts away. Laguna knew Squall cared about Ellone just as deeply, and using her to make him agree on something he dreaded was a low, but very effective blow.

"...All right," Squall growled through his teeth. "I'll wear my uniform."

"Aww, but-"

"It's formal enough," Squall said, unwilling to give in to more demands.

"But- Oh, okay, if you insist."

"I do. See you tonight."

* * *

Though he had never been particularly good at compartmentalizing his emotions, Seifer had made an honest effort to change in that respect.

Obsessing over the fact that his nosebleeds were back with a vengeance would put a big damper on tonight's plans. He forced himself to look at the bigger picture instead and, once he had recovered, he immediately returned to Balamb Garden.

Manu had already called about a thousand times, either to ask when Seifer was coming back, or to update him on the situation with the suspect. As expected, the second his team arrived, the man was escorted down to the brig by two B-Garden SeeDs, no questions asked. No-one was given permission to perform an interrogation. Manu's request had fallen on deaf ears, as Squall informed him the prisoner would be questioned by Zell and Zell alone.

After picking up some well-needed food from the cafeteria, Seifer made his way to his dorm to meet up with his team and form a plan of action. _Make that mine and Felix's dorm_, he thought sourly. For the few days he had spent in B-Garden before his peers arrived, Seifer had enjoyed his solitude in the double dormitory, but now he was forced to share it with Felix.

Balancing the three cardboard pizza boxes he was carrying on one hand, Seifer unlocked the door of his dorm with the other. The rest of his team was already assembled there, since Jack had declared this room was going to be their headquarters for the operation.

Seifer tossed one of the boxes over to Manu and Nyx who were sitting on his bed, then plopped the other two on the side of the desk that wasn't occupied by Jack's laptop. The young hacker was already hard at work, but he was the only one in the room actually doing something of essence. Rhys was sitting on a chair on Jack's right, watching him, while Felix was lounged on his bed, leafing through an old issue of _Timber Maniacs_. Nyx and Manu were watching a stream of the news on Manu's laptop.

_"...Joining me today are Xareth Miggs, reporter for Channel B, Darius Conrad, professor of Theology at DCU and Souchirou Ogawa, spokesman for the Popular Renaissance party of Esthar. Welcome panel."_

_"Good to be here, Nara."_

_"Thank you, Miss Brosca."_

_"Good evening, Miss Brosca." _

_"Xareth, there was quite the uproar today in Esthar. You were covering the event at Liberty Square. Any comments?"_

_"Uproar doesn't even begin to describe..."_

At the smell of food wafting through the small room, Rhys got up from his seat and ambled over to the other side of the desk to get some pizza.

"Don't _I_ get a box?" Felix asked, not tearing his eyes off the magazine.

"_Please_, I've seen you eat," Seifer said, grabbing a slice of pizza from the topmost pox. "You'll wolf the thing down before we can even blink. If you want food, get off your lazy arse and get some," he added, taking a chair on Jack's right and glancing curiously at the screen.

"Why do you _always_ get pepperoni? You know I hate pepperoni," Rhys grumbled.

"Tough. I like it," Seifer said, shoving half a slice of pizza in his mouth.

"You could at least get half and half..."

"If I have to tolerate mushrooms, you have to tolerate pepperoni," Seifer said, trying to make sense of what Jack was doing, with minimal success.

"Mushrooms are awesome," Rhys insisted.

"Mushrooms are disgusting. Fungus. You're eating _fungus_," Seifer said, extending a hand toward Jack's computer. "I can't see well from here, turn the sc-"

"Touch my laptop with your greasy fingers and _die_," Jack growled, pushing his glasses up his nose.

"Fine, jeez. Turn the screen yourself."

Jack did so, irritably. "There. Now you can watch me do something you don't understand. Better?"

"Someone's got sand in their vagina," Felix said in sing-song voice, as he approached the desk to grab a few slices of pizza.

"I do _not_ have sand-" Jack began, pursing his lips. "It's just frustrating, trying to work with all of you hovering over my head, asking stupid questions."

Seifer squinted at the screen. There were a dozen applications running at the same time, but the one that got his attention was a program that appeared to be mirroring another computer's desktop. Written all over the white background were the words _Deling City University_ in blue, right next to the school's logo.

"Hey, hold on a sec... DCU?" Seifer said. "What the hell? I told you to hack into the Balamb Garden server, not-"

"There, see?" Jack said in exasperation. "You _always_ comment on my work, _all_ of you, when you don't have a _clue_ what I'm trying to do."

"Well then, explain," Seifer said.

Jack let out a sigh. "Hacking always leaves a trail. You can cover it up, but if someone skilled enough starts snooping around, they'll trace the hack back to the real culprit. I'm hoping B-Garden doesn't have someone good enough to be able to do that, and even if they do, I'm trying to make the trail big enough so that it'll take a long time to trace it back to me. To that effect, I'm using other remote terminals to hack into-"

"Okay, okay, fine, we'll let you work!" Seifer said, holding his hands up in defeat.

He left his chair and went to join Nyx and Manu on his bed. Figaro was sprawled on the mattress between them, playing with Nyx. The stoic SeeD was absently stroking Figaro behind his ears, while keeping an eye on the news stream.

Seifer took a seat next to Nyx and munched on his slice of pizza slowly, half-wishing there was something more interesting to watch while Jack worked. He was tired of hearing about the event at the square over and over and over again everywhere he turned. "Is there a movie or someth-?"

"Shhh," Manu hissed, keeping his eyes on the screen.

_"...Loire sought sanctuary in his glass tower, like he always does whenever a scandal such as this takes place."_

The newscaster, a middle-aged woman with short-cropped blond hair fought back a small grin. _"It _should_ be noted that, while there is no official statement yet, President Loire's aide has assured us the situation is under control."_

The youngest man on the panel, a sniveling weasel Seifer knew as 'reporter' Xareth Miggs, let out a snort of derisive laughter. _"That's practically his job description; telling people it's aaaaaall going to be oookaaaay,"_ he said in a calm, soothing voice, meant to ridicule the President's aide.

_"Yes, well, Mr. Vale's dulcet tones aside, I think what's more interesting is the rumor there were SeeDs present in the square. Xareth, can you confirm that?"_ asked the newscaster, Nara Brosca.

"Why do they care if we were there or not?" Seifer asked, frowning.

_"We know for a fact that President Loire's son was present..."_

Manu shrugged. "We Estharis aren't too fond of foreigners as it is. The President is losing a lot of popularity by forging such an obvious alliance with SeeDs. Throw in a little propaganda, a little conspiracy theory... Estharis are afraid bringing in the SeeDs means trouble. The Archbishop's speech was meant to get more people on Loire's side, but after what happened today..."

_"...at the scene report the police and palace guards were co-operating with a group clad in civilian clothes. I think it's safe to assume, given their Commander's presence, that they were Balamb Garden SeeDs." _

_"Why is that even surprising?"_ said a man Seifer didn't recognize.

"Who is that?" he whispered to Manu.

"Souchirou Ogawa. Senator and spokesman for the Popular Rennaisance party," Manu replied.

_"The President's fondness of SeeDs is a well-known fact. Not to mention that in less than five years, Esthar will have its own Garden."_

_"You don't sound too pleased, Senator Ogawa," _Nara Brosca said, giving him a knowing look.

_"I'm not alone in thinking that SeeDs have been granted far too much power. An independent military force that operates with so few restrictions? It's ludicrous. Hopefully, the upcoming Centra convention..."_

The screen was suddenly blocked by a little ball of white fur; Figaro was trying to poke the Senator's face with his front paw.

"Ugh, did you really have to bring the cat along?" Manu asked Seifer, cringing.

"I couldn't just leave him in Deling. Jonah doesn't have enough time to take care of him," Seifer said, reaching forward and grabbing hold of Figaro's nape. The cat struggled a little as he was lifted up, but stopped squirming once he was on Seifer's lap. He shifted around a bit until he found the most comfortable position and curled up, rubbing his head against the rough fabric of Seifer's jeans.

"Still... there are hotels and shelters and stuff that take pets in when you're away," Rhys said from the other side of the room. "You could have left him in one of those places."

"Lay off my cat. He's not bothering anyone," Seifer said, running a thumb between Figaro's eyes.

"Speak for yourself... That thing is _weird_," Rhys went on.

Seifer looked up toward Rhys, arching an eyebrow at the statement. "Weird how?"

Rhys stopped pretending he understood a single thing Jack was doing, and turned his chair to face Seifer's bed. "It's like... he _knows_ stuff," he said, looking at the cat warily. "Whenever we talk about him, he can _tell-_ Ahhh! There,_ look_!" he hissed, pointing at Figaro.

The cat had shifted his attention from Seifer's soothing ministrations over to Rhys. His blue eyes were staring straight at him and his tail was swishing menacingly.

"He's smart," Seifer said, smiling fondly at the cat. "If dogs can understand orders and other human words, so can he."

"Dogs don't freak me out like that thing does," Rhys said, shaking his head. "He's watching, you know... _Aaaaalways_ watching."

"Well, dogs are stupid," Seifer said, now running his hand through the soft fur on Figaro's spine. The cat tucked his head between his front paws and closed his eyes, purring at the touch.

"No, they're not! They're loyal and kind! Cats look down on humans!" Rhys insisted.

"Considering most humans are idiots, I'd say cats are on the right track," Seifer said, smirking.

"By all means, keep arguing about pets," Jack grumbled, his eyes never leaving the screen. "It's not like I need to focus. It's not like I have anything, oh, I dunno, _MORE SODDING IMPORTANT TO DO._"

Jack's outburst effectively brought an end to the argument. Seifer was tired as it was, and if there was a chance he could sneak in some sleep until Jack was done, he would gladly take it. There was one thing he could count on when it came to the news, and that was the uncanny ability of a panel to put him to sleep. "He's right. Everyone shut up and let him do his thing," he said, and turned the volume up on Manu's laptop the slightest bit.

_"...ridiculous to place the blame on SeeD. It's common knowledge that Esthar is the front-runner in glaring contrasts. There is no other city in the world where Hyne is as revered by some as he is loathed by others. The religious extremists that oppose the Church-"_

_"Professor Conrad, are you saying you see no connection between the presence of SeeD in Esthar and the assassination attempt?"_

_"I do, Mr. Miggs, but not the one you are insinuating. The riots and general displeasure for President Loire's regime are a direct result of his association with SeeD. However, saying that SeeD are unwelcome because they attract violence is absurd."_

_"Mayor Dobe of FH shares my opinion."_

_"No disrespect meant to you, Senator Ogawa, but I've never taken Mayor Dobe very seriously."_

And just as things were starting to get interesting, the control room cut the mic of the outraged Senator. Xareth Miggs's mic followed soon, and the newscaster was the only person on the screen again, trying to compose herself as the last of Miggs's guffaws died down.

_"I'm afraid this is all the time we have on this matter. Xareth Miggs, Senator Ogawa, professor Conrad, thank you all for your input. And now, for something completely different. With the elections in Deling City drawing near, President Pyke issued a statement..."_

_

* * *

_

If asked a couple of hours ago how her day could have possibly taken a turn for the worst, Quistis Trepe would have drawn a blank. She had been certain that nothing, _nothing_ could rain on her parade after spending such pleasant –albeit brief- moments in Archbishop Rachmanov's company.

She was dead wrong.

Within the span of a few minutes, she and Selphie had allowed a suspect to flee, had received an earful from Squall for the incident and had been sent to their dorms with the guilt of such a failure hanging over their heads. At the very least, Selphie had been able to get to her dorm and rest, something that Quistis was having trouble accomplishing.

The small mountain of flowers and cards she had cleared off her doorstep upon her return from her escort mission had been nothing compared to _this_.

Her swift, timely actions back at Liberty Square seemed to have refueled the Trepies' obsession. Her ardent fans had rushed forth to express their admiration once again, flooding her doormat with a pile of letters and Hyne knew what else. She was immensely relieved she hadn't come across any of them on her way back to her dorm, but the situation was getting beyond ridiculous.

She kicked a mountain of cards aside and stepped all over the mess, trying to reach the card receptor. She slipped her ID through the slot and fell into the room in a tumble. The Trepies' presents followed suit, spilling into the room along with her.

Letting out a guttural cry of fury, she scribbled onto her feet and made her way to the cupboards above her desk. She ripped out a black garbage bag from the roll –which had dwindled significantly these last few days, she noted with a glare- and smacked the button on her answering machine to see if she had any messages. Meanwhile, she set about trying to clear the litter her fans had dumped on her doorstep.

_"You have. Sixty. Four. Messages."_

_I will kill them,_ Quistis fumed, as she carried pile after pile of fanmail and flowers into her room. _Each and every one of them. And it won't be quick, either. Oh, noooo..._

As she planned her particularly bloody and messy revenge, one by one, the sixty four messages played back, filling her room with awkward silences and hesitant voices.

_"Uhhh... erm... uh... I lov- Click. Beeeep."_

_"Quistis Trepe? Oh damn, I seem to have dialed the wrong number. Sorry about that! Wanted to reach the Commander's line. There's a top-secret mission coming up and he has been expecting my call so we can discuss tactics and assignments. I _am_ going to lead, after all, so I need to prepare and assemble my team. I'm told it has to do with the Deep Sea Research Center. Must be very important... But hey, since I just so happened to get a hold of you, I just wanted to say I have two tickets for the- Uhhh... Fuck, am I running out of-? Beeeep."_

When there was nothing left out in the hallway, Quistis shut the door, staring at the work that awaited her. One garbage bag was definitely not going to be enough. She fell down to her knees, resigned, and began stuffing the first bag with handful after handful of presents.

_Letter, letter, teddy bear, letter, flowers, card- Oh Hyne, this one's a picture of- GAHHHH! _ Shuddering, she tossed the picture into the bag, trying to force the visual of a cadet clad in nothing but a strategically placed shotgun out of her head.

_"Infirmary. NOW. Beeeep."_

That last message did the trick. Dr. Kadowaki's infuriated voice brought Quistis back to reality. Though she had received strict orders not to put any strain on her wrist for the next two weeks, she had disregarded the doctor's advice in light of what had happened. With every letter she threw into the bag, she could feel the throbbing pain in her wrist worsen.

_It was worth it,_ she reasoned with her conflicting emotions. _A man's life was at stake; what was I supposed to do? Hyne, she's going to bench me for a year. I know she is. Just so she can prove a point._

_"SeeD Trepe?"_

Quistis looked up. The voice on that message belonged to a stranger, but she could tell it wasn't a cadet, nor anyone who worked in Balamb Garden. It wasn't often that she received messages from someone not affiliated with Garden.

_"This is Nexxarius Zittnick, aide to his Eminence, Archbishop Rachmanov. He has informed me that you would be paying me a visit tomorrow, but I am sorry to say I have other engagements."_

Judging by the tone of his voice, Quistis was certain he was anything _but_ sorry. Unless she was gravely mistaken, this man was extremely displeased by the fact that the Archbishop had asked him to give his contact information to a stranger.

_"As such, I have called you to relay the phone number you can use to contact him."_

Quistis leapt up to her feet and sprinted over to her desk to grab a spare pen. She wrote the number down on her palm as the Archbishop's aide spoke, a wide grin spreading on her face.

_"Have a good day and Hyne be with you. Beeeep."_

With her mood decidedly improved, Quistis copied the number to her phone book and returned to the pile of mail and gifts scattered on her floor, a spring on her step. She was down to the last few objects, when the final message on her answering machine was played back.

_"Quistis? Where have you been? I have been calling your cell phone all morning. I know you're most likely busy after what happened, but please call me back. I had Mara set up an account for me on that... what is it called? That program you youngsters use to talk and see each other on camera? I will be online, waiting. If I haven't heard from you until tonight, I'm flying over there. This is no joke. Please get back to me soon. Beeeep." _

A sharp pang, like someone had plunged a spike through her stomach, gripped her when the answering machine declared that this was the end of her messages and the last person's identity sank in.

Now that she was done cleaning up, she found herself at a loss of what to do next. Go take a shower, return that last call, or go see Dr. Kadowaki? She had received some medical attention back at the square, but she knew she had to check with the doctor to hear her prognosis as well. Though Gutrix Kadowaki was no SeeD, she had enough spunk and determination to march over to Quistis's room and drag her by the ear to the infirmary if she took too long to get there on her own.

On the other hand, the male voice's threat to fly over to Garden if need be was just as critical.

After a few minutes spent in deliberation, Quistis decided on a quick shower and an even quicker chat on GOL (the Gaia On Line program that allowed callers to see each other on camera while they spoke) before paying the doctor a visit.

The water was cold enough to keep her from staying in the shower even if she'd wanted to. Quistis washed the soap and shampoo off her body in a hurry, yanking her bathrobe on as soon as she was done. She was fond of the winter and the fall, November in particular, but the colder seasons never sat well with the plumbing in Garden. Whoever woke up early enough had the luxury of enjoying a warm shower, but come noon, the supply was gone. If a SeeD had the bad luck to be returning from a mission later than twelve, he or she usually chose to shower the following morning.

Quistis tip-toed out of the bathroom, all the while cursing herself for forgetting to bring her slippers along. She picked up her laptop off her desk and made a beeline for the couch; it was situated right next to the only radiator in the room. She relaxed on the couch, closing her eyes as the laptop next to her purred to life.

When the computer was done booting, she placed it on her lap and double-clicked on a green phone icon on her desktop; the name of the application read _GOL_. Quistis drummed her fingernails against the computer's plastic surface, waiting for the program to load. On the wallpaper of the desktop, the beaming faces of six young people kept her company while she waited. Quistis grinned at the memory of the day the picture had been taken; even Squall had smiled that day.

Edea had taken their picture at some point during the party that followed Ultimecia's defeat. Irvine, the tallest of them all, was crouched down in the front, hatless. Selphie was wearing his trademark cowboy hat, and had interlaced her fingers over the top of his head. Her chin was resting on her hands and she was winking at the camera. On their left, Zell was flexing his arms right next to Quistis. She remembered him pestering her to no end until she had agreed to squeeze his bicep for the picture. On Irvine and Selphie's right, stood Squall and Rinoa, holding hands. Squall had been grinning -and effectively terrorizing the Garden populace with such a rare sight- ever since the two of them had returned from the balcony. Rinoa had handled it with a little more grace, but she, too, had been glowing.

The application finished loading and Quistis found herself staring at the sign-in window of GOL.

**Welcome to **_**Gaia On Line**_**!**

**User Name:  
Password:**

**New user? Register here!**

Quistis typed in her credentials and logged on.

**Welcome Trepe, Quistis!**

**You have (1) pending buddy request from:**

_**Trepe, Keldor Alistair**_

**Accept? Decline?**

Quistis clicked on _Accept_. She adjusted the camera on her laptop and scrolled down her contact list until she found the newly added name. She double-clicked the contact and waited.

It only took a couple of seconds before the camera feed on the other end of the line sprung to life. A slim man in his fifties answered the call. He had long, white hair worn in a ponytail, icy grey eyes and very sharp facial features. His nose was narrow and slightly pointed, like his chin, which sported a well-trimmed goatee as white as his hair. At the sight of her, the worry lines on the man's face relaxed and he let out a sigh.

"_Finally_!" he gasped. "Hyne, have you any idea how worried I've been?" he chastised her, making no effort to conceal his heavy Trabian accent.

"Salut papa," Quistis said, smiling at him apologetically. "How are you?"

"One step away from a stroke," her father said, by now only half-glaring at her. "I saw you on the news," he added, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"How did I look?" Quistis asked, trying to steer the conversation to a lighter mood.

"Like an Esthari soldier. You were undercover?"

Quistis shrugged. "Sort of. I can't give you any details, you know that."

"I do," Keldor said, sighing. He was used to this, after all; a SeeD's parents learned early on in their children's careers that need-to-know was all they were going to get when it came to missions. Some handled it better than others. Quistis could see Keldor was dying to know more, but he didn't ask any intrusive questions. "Are you all right now? Were you hurt?"

"I sprained my wrist a little, but other than that, I'm fine," Quistis replied, smiling. "How's Brennan?"

"Insolent, moody and cryptic."

"He's at that age, huh?" Quistis said, chuckling.

"Unfortunately," Keldor said. "But he's doing all right. He's been getting good grades and he's expressed an interest in Sphere, Hyne help us."

"Tell him I said hi," Quistis said.

"I will. He's been asking about you, too. His friends don't believe him when he says you're related, apparently."

"Tell him I'll send proof," Quistis said, laughing. "Listen, dad, I have to cut this short. I'm sorry, but I need to visit the infirmary. I'm supposed to get the okay from Dr. Kadowaki and if I don't get there soon, she'll be out on the warpath. Can we talk again soon?"

"Call me on this... GOL thingy," Keldor said, looking a little sad they couldn't talk longer, but still relieved he'd heard from her. "I won't be home for a while."

"How come?" Quistis asked.

"Visiting an old business associate in Dollet," Keldor replied. "I'm in talks for an upcoming tour. The first concert will be in Centra, most likely. Do you think you could make it?"

"Uhh, I have no idea. When is it going to be?" Quistis asked.

"I'll let you know when it's booked. I'll send over a ticket."

"It's okay, you don't have to," Quistis hurried to say. "I don't even know if I'll be on leave-"

"I'll reserve two seats just in case. Bring a friend along."

"All right. If I can make it, I promise I'll be there," Quistis said, smiling at him.

"Good. Well then... Take care, chérie. Stay out of trouble, you hear?"

"D'accord, papa. Bye."

"Goodbye."

Quistis exited the program and put the laptop away. She leaned against the cushions of the couch, letting out a sigh.

Her relationship with her estranged step-father and brother had been almost non-existent for the better part of her teen life. But wars had a strong effect on people, and after Ultimecia's downfall, Quistis had decided to make an effort to reforge whatever ties she had left with her broken little family.

Her father was a good man, one who had treated her with nothing but affection for four whole years. When she left the Trepe household, she knew she had crushed him –if it was humanly possible to hurt him even more than he had already been hurt- but staying in that house after what had happened would have been unbearable. She kept her new last name out of respect for everything the Trepes had done for her, but only communicated with them as little as possible.

She didn't even know her brother. He was only a few months old when she left, and she had met him all of two times when he was already in the cusp of adolescence. They were complete strangers.

And yet, when she tried to reach them again two years ago, they had taken her back warmly. They hadn't asked a single question and they'd made an effort to reincorporate her into the family as if she'd never left. _I don't deserve this kind of forgiveness,_ she mused, staring at her feet.

_"You have reached Quistis Trepe's dorm. I'm not here right now. Please leave a message, and I'll try to get back to you as soon as possible. Beeep."_

_"You've had ample time to come on your own. Now I'm coming for you myself. Beeep."_

Quistis's head whirled toward her answering machine. _Dr. Kadowaki! Shit!_

Springing up on her feet, Quistis bolted for the closet and whipped out the first set of clothes her hands landed on.

* * *

"Red orrrrrrr... _yellow?_" Zell exclaimed, swiveling around to face Shizuka. He held up two monochromatic ties next to the undone collar of his white shirt, grinning broadly and jerking his head toward the yellow one.

Shizuka, who had so far been lounged on his bed and absorbed into some sort of paperwork –he hadn't really bothered to ask what it was- looked up. She scrunched up her nose at him. "A yellow tie?"

"Yeah!" Zell said. "It's bright, it's different... It'll look good with my suit," he explained. Black went with everything, after all, so why not a yellow tie?

The girl shrugged and shifted her gaze back to the sheaf of papers on her lap. "If you wanna go with yellow, go with yellow. Why are you even getting dressed?" she asked, glancing up once. "It's still early."

Zell walked up to the mirror in his bathroom, looping the yellow tie around his neck. "Squall wants me to go interrogate the prisoner before we leave. I would've gone sooner, but I fell asleep," he said, raising his voice to be heard all the way back to the bedroom. "It's not like I'm going to have to rough him up, anyhow. I'll have two guards with me if it comes to that."

"Suit yourself."

"WHAT?"

"I SAID SUIT YOURSELF."

Zell put the finishing touches on his tie, checking out the result on his reflection. _Meh._ He had never really grasped the whole technique involved. It looked a little crooked, but he knew Rinoa would be able to fix it once they met up. It would do for now.

He made his way back to the bedroom, checking to see if he had everything on him. _Wallet, ID card,_ he said to himself, looking around the room for anything he might have missed. _Cell phone... all there._ "It shouldn't take more than an hour," he told Shizuka. "Are you gonna get dressed here or should I swing by your place?"

Shizuka looked up again, a faint apprehensive grimace on her face. "Oh, uhh... I'm not coming."

"What? Why not?"

She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, looking away. "I uhh... Work. I have to get a few things done."

"Oh come on, it'll be fun," Zell said, ambling over to the bed and sitting next to her. "I can help you out with paperwork tomorrow, I don't have any assignments."

"No, forget about it," Shizuka said, shaking her head. "Go, have fun, I don't mind."

"We haven't gone out in ages," Zell pressed on. "It'll be good for you to get some fresh air."

"It hasn't been ages," Shizuka said, looking a little defensive. "We went out last week."

"I meant with everyone else, not just us two."

"You don't like going out when it's only the two of us?"

"I- Wha- _No_. It's just that..." Zell trailed off.

He didn't know quite how to continue without inciting an argument. Even though they'd been together for nearly a year now, Zell had yet to perfect the skill of talking to her about matters that were a little more delicate. Such as the fact that she rarely spent any time with his friends.

He knew they were very different people. Hell, he and Shizuka were different enough as it was, but he had hoped that after so many months, she would be a little more willing to find common ground with anyone other than Rinoa. The only reason those two were even friendly was because Rinoa spent a lot of time in the library the first few months she'd moved to Garden, back when Shizuka still worked there.

Shizuka hadn't even made an effort to be friendlier to Quistis, a bibliophile if Zell ever saw one, simply because Quistis did all her reading in her dorm.

"I haven't really had a chance to hang out with everyone else in a while. Neither have you," Zell went on, trying to sound as gentle and diplomatic as he could.

"I've told you it's okay to go out with them alone, you know," Shizuka said. "I don't mind."

That much was true. She had been perfectly clear about that from the beginning: she was fine with him going out with his friends even if she couldn't come along. But Zell wanted her to become part of their little group, or at the very least make an effort to. "I know you don't. But they're our friends," he said. "You don't have to feel shy around them. You're not shy around me anymore."

"It's not shyness, I just- They're not really _my_ friends," Shizuka said.

"They _could_ be."

"I have friends."

"I know that," Zell said, stifling a groan. "But you could at least try to hang out with _my_ friends, like I do with yours."

"I hang out with Rinoa... sometimes," Shizuka said, frowning and toying with her stack of paperwork, looking anywhere but straight at him.

"Yeah, because she used to spend hours in the library," Zell said, his voice getting a little louder. He was trying to remain calm, he truly was, but it felt like they'd been having the same argument for months, and nothing had changed even in the slightest bit.

"Well, I don't really have much to talk about with everyone else."

"Do you not... like them?" Zell asked tentatively, finally voicing a fear he'd had for a long time. "I dunno, do you have an issue with any of them? You can tell me, you know."

"No! I like them all just fine, I just don't really know what to say when we're all together."

"You could _try_."

"I _am_ trying!" Shizuka exclaimed, glaring at him, now quite visibly angry herself.

"Then why won't you come tonight?" Zell insisted.

"Because I have stuff to do and this whole dinner deal is _very_ last minute!"

Deciding not to let this get completely out of control, Zell stood up, throwing his hands in the air in defeat. His blood was boiling, and there was much he wanted to say, but he had neither the time nor the patience to deal with this at the moment.

"Fine, whatever... I won't pressure you into this," he said. "I never pressure you into _anything_..." he added in an undertone, bitterly.

He hadn't really meant to voice that very last thought, but at the same time he was glad he had, even though it made Shizuka sit up on her knees in bed, looking furious. It wasn't often that she got angry, but when she did, she looked twice her normal size. Her nostrils flared and her brows became a nearly flat line of black cutting right across her pale forehead.

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?" she said, arms akimbo.

"Nothing."

"_Some_thing!"

"Forget about it, I have to go," Zell said, already making his way toward the door. He really didn't want to finish this conversation, but a part of him was glad he had gotten such a rise out of her. _Good. At least I'm not the only one who'll have a shitty night, _he grumbled inwardly.

"Have fun," Shizuka spat at him and fell back on the bed, leafing through her paperwork rigidly.

"Thanks," Zell drawled. "I'll see you later tonight."

"You're coming by my room?" she asked, unable to fight down a cringe.

He didn't know whether to attribute it to their fight or the fact that they rarely ever slept on the same bed, but neither notion made her grimace a pleasant sight. "Do you not want me to?" he asked.

"I- No, it's okay. You can sleep over," Shizuka conceded, shrugging.

"Wow. Your enthusiasm is contagious," Zell quipped. "I think you just cheered me up."

"Why do you _always_ do this?" Shizuka said, groaning and digging her fingers into her scalp in exasperation. "Get me riled up when I have to get work done?"

"Oh, _I_ get you riled up? _Me_?" Zell shouted back, jabbing a finger against his chest.

Was she serious? Couldn't she see who was to blame here?

"Yes! You can't accept the simple fact that I have responsibilities and that I don't really have fun when I'm with your friends," Shizuka said, in a manner that suggested she had been longing to get this out of her chest.

"And I don't have responsibilities?" Zell said, crossing his arms in front of his chest. This had gone on too far. How had they gone from her reluctance to join him to their respective responsibilities?

"Zell, just..." Shizuka trailed off, sighing. "I'm sorry, I have a lot on my mind lately," she said, and the apology sounded genuine.

Zell's facial features softened. He knew she was busy. He knew she had a lot on her plate and that she had been disappointed with her job for a long time, but whenever he tried to get her to talk to him, she brushed the matter off and said she was going to take care of it herself. She'd had a lot on her mind for _months_, not just a few days, and she refused to let him in on any of it.

"Like what?" Zell asked.

"Like... like..." she hesitated, tapping her foot against the mattress. "I dunno, _stuff_!"

"Oh, _stuff_. Yeah, that clears everything right up," Zell said, his anger returning full-force. It really wasn't the best of moments to talk about that particular issue, he knew, and Shizuka probably felt uncomfortable discussing this right now, but it had gone on long enough and Zell's already scant patience was wearing thin. "Whatever... when you're ready to tell me, just..." he trailed off. "We'll talk tomorrow," he said, and pressed the button to open the door.

"You're not coming over?" Shizuka said in a small voice.

"You obviously don't want me to," Zell replied, glaring at the hallway wall across him, his back turned to her.

"I didn't say that."

"No, your face told me everything I needed to know," he said, glancing at her once over his shoulder.

Shizuka tilted her head back, bumping it against the wall and let out an angry sigh.

Zell stepped outside, grabbing hold of the edge of the door and trying to yank it shut in vain.

"What are you _doing_?" Shizuka said, fueling his anger to a breaking point.

"I'M TRYING TO SLAM THE DOOR!" Zell yelled, beyond caring who overheard them or that he was making the situation even worse.

"SLIDING DOORS DON'T SLAM!"

"I KNOW THAT!" he shouted, and let go of the door, marching down the corridor.

The door to his dorm closed behind him with a very soft, unsatisfactory sound. He wanted to make some noise, hit something, someone –if only Seifer would suddenly show up- just do anything to vent out his mounting frustration.

He didn't know just how much more of this he could take. Being in a relationship was entirely new territory, but even he could see there was something very wrong about all this. He wasn't a particularly patient person, but in Shizuka's case, he had been very patient indeed. Granted, it had taken him quite a while -and no small amount of prodding by his friends, to ask her out in the first place, but he liked to think he had learned a lot in the last year.

The thing that upset him the most was that he had always pictured himself having a girlfriend who would have no trouble slipping into his social circle with ease. They didn't have to agree on everything, nor would he want them to, but his family and his friends were the most important part of his life. If Shizuka wasn't willing to make an effort where it truly counted, what else was she not willing to do?

Without even realizing he had been headed there, Zell suddenly found himself staring at the double doors to the elevator. He paused, trying to remember why he had made his way there in the first place, when it hit him. _The interrogation,_ he groaned, fighting the urge to call the whole thing off and simply go beat the crap out of Grats in the training center.

However, he had already had one horrible argument for the evening. Facing Squall's displeasure on top of everything else was not something he could stomach. Letting out a low growl, he stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the B Level.

The post office usually located there was closed at this hour, but there were SeeDs stationed there 24/7 as it was now the only entrance to Garden's MD Level. What used to be an abandoned shelter housing B-Garden's engines had been turned into one of the busiest hubs of the construct. The Garden server had been relocated there as well as the brig, and the whole place had been scrubbed down and cleared from a dangerous monster infestation.

The MD Level was now a far cry from the dark, haunting complex he, Rinoa and Squall had first laid eyes upon in the midst of a quest to warn B-Garden of incoming missiles.

As soon as Zell was out of the newly-installed elevator that led straight down to the core, he made his way toward the cylindrical little tower in the middle of the room where the brig was located. The two guards at the entrance fell into attention and gave him a salute.

Zell gave the two men a curt nod and stepped inside, willing his anger to dissipate. Though he was desperate for a release right now, venting out on the prisoner was bound to prove catastrophic. He took a deep breath, counted down from five, and pushed the door leading to the holding cells open.

* * *

Quistis leaned against the wall behind her, checking her watch with a sigh. She was the first one in the parking lot. _Typical_, she thought, frowning.

Squall was usually punctual, but whenever he and Rinoa came together, they tended to be a few minutes late. He could just picture him, all decked out in his formal clothes, pacing back and forth and pointing at his wristwatch irritably while Rinoa put the finishing touches on her makeup and hair.

Zell was nearly always the last one to show up, neck-and-neck with Rinoa for the top spot. His afternoon naps usually lasted longer than planned; he would stumble over to their meeting place with his shirt inside-out, tufts of hair pointing in odd angles and his eyes a little unfocused, looking like he'd just stepped out of bed, which he usually had.

Selphie and Irvine, on the other hand, were never quite stable in their timetables. They would either show up right on time, or very late, giggling to each other and muttering obviously fake excuses that left no-one guessing as to what had _really_ held them back. Every single time, without fail, Selphie would then traipse over to Quistis and Rinoa and explain what had truly happened in great detail, much to their chagrin.

Quistis smoothed down the front of her spaghetti-strap, black midi dress, tapping her foot against the floor impatiently. _Where_ are_ they?_ Even though she was nearly always the one waiting for the rest to come, the last one to arrive was usually five to ten minutes late at worst. Right now, it was 8:10, and she was still the only one there.

It wasn't exactly the epitome of comfort, standing up for so long in heels. Granted, they weren't particularly high heels, but still... Grimacing, she tucked a slim finger under the low bun she had pulled her hair into, toying with a hairpin that had been digging into her skull.

The sound of approaching footsteps made her sigh in relief. _Finally, someone's coming._ Judging by the pitch, it was one of the guys; she couldn't hear the sharper tap heels made against the floor. She was proven right when she saw Squall rush in through the threshold, clad in his SeeD uniform, running a hand through his hair. He looked a little stressed, like he always did when he ran late, and upon seeing Quistis, his face fell.

"You're the only one here?" he said, frowning. "For Hyne's sake... And here I thought I was holding everyone up."

"Rinoa's not with you?" Quistis asked.

Squall shook his head. "I had to run up to the third floor for a few last-minute preparations; that's why I was late," he explained.

"Still convinced Seifer is going to try something tonight?" Quistis asked.

"I'm sure of it," Squall said, smirking ever-so-slightly. "I left Xu in charge, along with Nida. Xyphias is keeping an eye on the network and just as I was leaving, Shizuka showed up to help."

"She's not coming?"

Squall shrugged. "Not like it's unusual," he said, giving Quistis the one-over. "You look nice."

Quistis smiled at him, still unable to believe the kind of magic Rinoa had worked on him. A few years ago, he wouldn't have even noticed what she wore, much less comment on it. He never said more than 'nice' in such occasions, but the fact that he even cared enough to compliment her was a huge change, indeed. "Thank you," she said. "You, too. How come you're wearing your uniform, though?"

Squall waved a hand dismissively. "Couldn't be bothered to fret over this. Still don't see why we had to dress up in the first place."

"Well, I'm guessing the original event was a ritzy affair," Quistis said, referring to the dinner that was to be held in the Archbishop's honor. "It would look a little odd, eating gourmet food dressed in jeans. Mind you, I think I'd prefer it, too. But since Laguna—" She paused upon hearing another person hurrying over to their meeting spot.

_Heels, this time_. Craning her neck to look at the hallway and squinting slightly, Quistis made out Rinoa in the distance. "Rinoa's coming," she informed Squall.

The Commander followed Quistis's gaze, and she saw him smile fleetingly.

Though she never overdressed, Rinoa had the uncanny ability to always look as if she'd just stepped out of a fairytale; classy, beautiful and devastatingly feminine. Tonight, she wore a very simple strapless, empire-waist dress that flowed down her torso in elegant wisps of light blue silk. With her –now considerably long- black hair dancing side-to-side and her sparkling jewelery, she wouldn't have looked out of place out in a long stairway, in search of her lost glass slipper.

"Sorry I'm late," she said, coming to a halt in front of them and panting slightly. "The humidity is always hell for my hair and- anyway, sorry," she said, and gave Squall a swift peck on the lips. "You look very dashing," she said to him. For a few seconds, they seemed to be lost in one another, probably picturing themselves dressed that way for a more romantic scenario than joining their friends for dinner over at the place where Squall's estranged father lived.

Rinoa was the first one to snap out of it, and turned to Quistis. "Haven't we been though this? You don't waste the Little Black Dress on something so mundane; you whip it out at the _right _moment and make a bang!" she half-scolded Quistis. "Don't get me wrong, you look great," she said, approaching the older girl to kiss her on the cheek. "But this is supposed to be your secret weapon, not your answer to every wardrobe dilemma."

Quistis rolled her eyes at the comment, but returned the kiss nonetheless. She remembered Rinoa's lecture on the Little Black Dress -capitalization mandatory for emphasis- all too well, but much like Squall, she couldn't be bothered to overthink her wardrobe choices when she was with friends. Besides, the dress did look good on her, and it _was_ the easy solution whenever she wasn't in the mood to obsess over her outfit.

"What's wrong with a black dress?" Squall asked, clearly not in the know when it came to the infinite mystery that was a woman's closet.

"It's not _a_ black dress," Rinoa insisted, combing her fingers through her perfectly straightened locks of hair. "It's _the_ Little Black-"

"Dangit, Sefie, I told you to hurry!"

"HA!" Rinoa exclaimed, pointing at Irvine and Selphie who had just showed up. "Beat you to it! Now you can't ever again say I take too long to get my hair done," she said. "I saw them coming in from the other end of the dorm hallway," she explained to Quistis and Squall. "So I ran all the way here. I was _not_ going to be the last one to arrive again."

"I don't even care," Selphie said, looking thrilled for simply being able to walk in her complicated get-up. "This outfit requires careful handling. It costs more than you bums earn in half a year combined."

"Oh, Selphie, you _didn't_," Quistis moaned, seeing what her friend had chosen to wear.

Months ago, Selphie had bugged Quistis and Rinoa into insanity when she told them she wanted to buy a good-quality silk kimono, much like the ones her idol, Laguna, wore for special occasions. They'd both tried to dissuade her: Rinoa had made the most salient point, asking where she would even have a chance to wear it, while Quistis had simply pointed her to a website selling the best Esthari kimonos and showed her the prices.

That was the biggest mistake she'd made that day. The moment Selphie set eyes on the –admittedly gorgeous- yellow kimono decorated with small, pale red chrysanthemum designs, she became obsessed with pooling enough resources to buy it. Quistis doubted Selphie would ever be able to afford food again after such a splurge.

To complete the look, Selphie had combed her gravity-defying hair back into a tiny little bun hanging from her nape, which she had held in place with two ornate red chopsticks. She was even wearing the platform shoes traditional Esthari women wore, white socks and all. She had the look down quite well, though it was apparent she was hardly able to walk in the narrow cut of the dress.

"Oh, but I _did_," Selphie said, grinning from ear to ear. "Isn't it _beautiful_?" she said, running her hands down the smooth silk robe and the large belt that held it all together.

Quistis and Rinoa shared a look of mixed amusement and exasperation. Rinoa shrugged and grinned, turning back to Selphie. "It is. You look amazing, Selphie."

"Ah-ah-AH!" Selphie said, holding her index finger up. "Tonight I look _kawaii_."

"Ka-what?" Squall asked, momentarily forgetting that they were running later by the minute and still utterly confused by the girls' fascination with clothing.

It was Irvine who answered, looking just as uncomfortable as Squall did in his simple black suit. He always felt a little out of place when he didn't have his hat on. "Kawaii. It's Esthari for cute. Selphie is learning Esthari now, apparently."

"Oh, so you _finally_ deigned to open the books I gave you ages ago?" Quistis asked. Selphie had expressed an interest in Esthari at some point last year, and since Quistis had long ago abandoned the pursuit to enrich her scant knowledge of the language, she had lent Selphie the self-teaching books she'd bought. Selphie had never gotten around to returning them, or even leafing through them, for that matter.

"No offense, Quisty," Selphie replied, grinning awkwardly. "But they're a little boring. I'm learning from my shows though, don't worry. I already know tons of stuff!"

"Such as?" Quistis asked.

"Well, I'm watching this one series about ninjas –the word for ninja is shinobi, by the way, and they have all these techniques and stuff, and like, katon is fire and kitsune is fox and-"

"OH, LOOK IT'S ZELL," Irvine exclaimed all of a sudden. Quistis guessed he was about as tired of Selphie's animated shows as everyone else was, not to mention her fixation with everything Esthari as of late.

"Did she get any of it right?" Rinoa whispered to Quistis, as Irvine and Selphie greeted a very sullen-looking Zell.

"I think she's right about the word for fox," Quistis said. "But I'm pretty sure katon is the word for fire element, not fire in general."

Rinoa sniggered. "Kinda makes me wish Selphie smoked. Just so I could see her ask a random Esthari in the street for a light. 'May I have your katon, please?' "

"Shhh, she's coming," Quistis whispered back, stifling her chuckles.

"I'm having Zell accompany me to the palace tonight," Selphie said, as she ushered Zell into their midst. "Color-coordinated," she said, pointing at his yellow tie.

"You with me, Black Magic Woman?" Irvine said, winking at Quistis and holding his arm out for her to hold.

Quistis smiled and looped her arm through his. "Are we all ready to go, then?" she asked. "Zell, are you all right?"

The usually vivacious blond simply shrugged. "Yeah, let's go."

Quistis and Irvine led the way over to the two cars they were taking for the night. She and Selphie had had a little chat earlier that day and, agreeing that Squall and Rinoa seemed to be going through a bit of a rough patch, decided to let the two share a car alone while the rest of them would get to the palace in one of the SeeD vehicles.

Behind her, she heard Squall, ever the workaholic, question Zell about the prisoner. "How did it go?" he asked. "Did you manage to get anything out of him?"

Zell shook his head. "Nothing. Not a single word."

"What did he look like? Was he scared? Submissive? Did he look willing-?"

"Can we talk about this later?" Zell cut him off. "Sorry, I just- It's nothing ground-breaking. It can wait, can't it?"

Squall gave Zell a long, calculating look, but decided not to press the issue. "All right," he said.

Quistis looked at Zell over her shoulder as discreetly as she could. Though he was known to be in a sour mood every now and then, he didn't usually look quite as crestfallen as he did right now. Selphie was trying her best to cheer him up, but he merely smiled back at her jokes out of politeness and an effort to look mildly excited for tonight's outing. His mind was elsewhere; that much was obvious.

Quistis thanked Irvine for holding the car door open for her and stepped inside. She was more than eager to spend a carefree night with her friends after the stress-ridden last few days, but she still made a mental note to talk to Zell about what was ailing him later.

* * *

The atmosphere in Seifer's dorm was getting thicker with anticipation by the minute.

After deciding on a plan of action, the six mercenaries had thrown themselves into preparations. They had little time and resources to pull off an operation that required far more planning and a lot more hours spent on surveillance, but it would have to do.

Fortunately for them, luck was on their side. Jack had been able to establish a connection to the camera network hours ago. As such, they had seen that Squall and his friends were going out for the night and that Zell's interrogation had yielded no results; the suspect had refused to say a single word. They had a clear field to make their move, but that was exactly what worried Seifer the most.

He knew Squall was expecting him to try something tonight. He also knew that the Commander wasn't leaving Garden for hours along with nearly every person he trusted out of chance. It was bait, plain and simple, and he was expecting Seifer to bite. The only question was who had been ordered to keep tabs on them for tonight. _Definitely Xu,_ Seifer thought, but aside from her, he couldn't think of anyone else.

Seifer's team had reassembled in his and Felix's dorm once they were ready, now counting the seconds until they were good to go.

Jack had barely left the desk for hours upon hours. As usual, he had done more work than all of them put together, but such was the nature of his role in the group. The desk his laptop rested upon was cluttered with small black devices, blueprints and seven empty pizza boxes.

The rest were all gathered in Seifer's room. Rhys and Felix stood against the wall, silent, simply waiting for their orders as they watched the pair on the bed right across them.

Nyx was clad in an outfit that had been assembled from whatever the six of them could scrounge together. His part in the operation required him to blend with the background as well as possible and that meant a camouflage ensemble. The right sleeve of his shirt had been rolled up.

Next to Nyx on Seifer's bed, Manu was administering a syringe stocked with magic capsules. It was something any SeeD could do on their own, but junctioning accidents, though scarce, were known to happen, and they couldn't afford any mistakes before they had even begun.

The process didn't require a vein; any muscle would do, and Manu plunged the syringe in the soft flesh of Nyx's forearm. Seifer, who was overlooking the preparations and stood by the bed, let out a small shudder at the sight; he had never been a big fan of needles, nor did he enjoy having pure energy poured into his body. Depending on the spell, the sensation was different. Elementals felt coarse and stung. Healing magic made his muscles clench and tighten for a couple of seconds as it spread through the body. Time magic made the hairs all over his body stand on end. He had received the same treatment Nyx now was a few minutes earlier, as they were the only two who might need to cast at all tonight.

"I've given you Cura, Stop and Haste. What else do you need?" Manu asked Nyx.

"Float and Dispel," Nyx replied.

Manu looked through the small leather case he had brought along; it was stocked with magic capsules. As a medic, he was the only one who had been allowed to enter Balamb Garden without having all magic siphoned out of him. The case had been searched to make sure it contained only healing magic, but Manu had hidden the rest in a small secret compartment, which the Balamb SeeDs had thankfully not discovered.

Manu found the capsules he needed. "Density?" he asked Nyx.

Seifer had to roll his eyes at that. Though Manu was technically right in his choice of terminology, no-one ever spoke like that anymore. SeeDs simply referred to the magic in their bodies as X number of spells. One would usually say they were carrying five Curas, not one 5% density Cura. Every instance of the spell cast used up a small portion of the energy stocked. Double and Triple magic were designed to increase the output of one such instance from 1% to 2 and 3% respectively.

"Ten Floats and five Dispels," Nyx said.

"Give him twenty and ten," Seifer interjected. "Just to be on the safe side."

"Are we nearly done?" Jack asked from the main room, turning his chair toward Seifer's bedroom to look in on the proceedings.

Seifer nodded.

"Okay, good, let's go over everything one last time," Jack said. "Leonhart and his group should be leaving right about now. In five minutes, Rhys, Felix and Manu will spread out within Garden, keeping an eye on what's happening outside. Whichever of you finds a good candidate first goes on with the plan."

The three men murmured in consent.

"At eight twenty sharp, Nyx sets off," Jack went on. "Seifer and I stay here, until Nyx makes it to the second floor. When that's done, Seifer makes his move." He let out a sigh, and turned to look at Seifer. "I don't have to say it again, do I? We're flying blind here; we have no idea how the patrols go, what you will encounter down there, or whether you can even return without anyone noticing."

Seifer crossed his arms in front of his chest and grinned. "Yep."

"We're going to need a shitload of luck to pull this off," Jack said, trying to reiterate his point.

"You wanna back out?" Seifer asked.

Jack let out a snort of derision. "_No_. Just stating the obvious here," he said. "Okay, then... Come get your gear," he said, beckoning his team over to the desk.

He handed Rhys three sets of earpieces and microphones. Rhys handed one to Felix and tossed the other on Seifer's bed, where Manu was removing his gloves and securing his leather case. The three of them put them on, concealing them as best they could under locks of hair and clothes.

"Nyx, you're up," Jack said and gave Nyx an identical set to that of his three teammates. "Ingenious leader is next."

Seifer approached the desk. He was getting the bulk of the small contraptions Jack had assembled, as he would play the most complicated part of them all. Aside from the earpiece and microphone, Jack handed him three more devices.

The first one was a tiny, round device that looked like a button. The other was about the size of a cell phone and resembled a PDA. It had a small antenna, a large screen and only a handful of buttons in front. The third one was the only piece of machinery that had Seifer drawing a complete blank. It didn't look like anything he knew; it was a plastic and transparent little box, barely the size of a thumbnail.

"This is your camera," Jack explained, pointing at the button-like device. "Pin it somewhere on your chest when the time comes. That," he went on, pointing at the third piece of equipment. "Is a 'spider.' You'll clip it on the conduit I tell you to and once you do that, you'll pull out your receiver. That's the large one," he added, now showing him the PDA-like contraption. "Hold it close to the camera and I'll tell you what to do," he finished, and gathered all the machinery Seifer would be taking along into a small ziplock bag. He inserted that bag into another one, and another one, to make certain the small items would be as secure as possible until they had to be used.

"It is now," Seifer said, checking his watch. "Eight thirteen. That gives me two minutes for a speech, cool," Seifer added and looked up at his teammates. He stroked his chin for a few seconds, scrutinizing them all and trying to come up with something inspirational to say. "Don't fuck this up."

"Such moving words. I may cry," Felix drawled, toying with his earpiece. "Are we good to go?"

Jack nodded. "Operation_ We're-Soooo-Getting-Fucked-In-The-Arse_ has commenced. Get to your positions."

* * *

**A/N: **Phew! With the barrage of subplots out of the way, you can expect a little more action in the second part. We get to see the actual operation, as well as the dinner at the Presidential palace, and of course, Xu running the place in Squall's absence and generally being the BAMF she always is.

Speaking of subplots, I hope you weren't confused by the appearance of Quistis's 'father.' He is her step-father, of course, not her biological one. In the game, she simply mentions that things didn't work out with her foster family, so I'm going to explore what she meant by that. We'll see how it goes.

In case you were wondering, yes, I did rip off a generous chunk of the operation out of _Ocean's Eleven,_ hence the reference in the beginning of the chapter xD

On a final note, Selphie's obsession with everything Esthari and her conviction that animated shows are good enough a tutor is a parody of pretty much every otaku (myself included). While I never asked a Japanese person for their 'katon,' I've said some hilariously wrong things over the years. And yes, like Selphie, I would willingly go hungry for months if I had enough money saved up to buy a kickass kimono xD


	12. Chapter 11: Sub Rosa Pt 2

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own FF8 or Square Enix, but a hostile takeover is on my to-do list, right below world domination and building a giant chocolate fountain on the yard of my future mansion. Fingers crossed.

**A/N:** Gah, this took longer than I thought it would. Writing this chapter was great fun, but editing it and working out all the kinks and plot holes was a _nightmare_. I hope I didn't miss any glaring errors.

You'll notice the appearance of GF abilities in this chapter, something I've never used in the past. The problem I have with many of them is that, even in the context of a fantasy story, they make little sense in a non-gaming aspect. It would be ridiculous to try and incorporate something like the Card ability, for example. To that end, I'm only going to use the abilities which, if slightly tweaked, can work in a fantasy setting. In this chapter's case, Diablos's Enc-None is translated into invisibility. Moreover, I'm using an old concept of mine concerning the summoning of a GF. The idea is that the person intending to junction a GF carries with him a summoning stone where the GF's spirit is 'stored,' for lack of a better term.

Also, watch as I take the least useful spell (after scan) in the game and abuse it to meet my chapter's needs xD I have come to the conclusion that Float is the best spell, _ever_.

This is the chapter where the story earns its M rating. Be warned that there is a somewhat disturbing scene at the very end. I toned it down significantly from the first draft, but if you don't do well with gore, you may still wanna skip it. Just stop reading after the scene where a talk between Laguna and Squall is interrupted by Esthari soldiers; you'll still get the gist of what happened.

Same warning goes for a dish that is mentioned in this chapter. Word of advice: do _not_ google 'shirako' if you can't stomach the thought of, er... exotic food xD

* * *

**Chapter 11:** Sub Rosa Pt. 2

* * *

_"Secrets are made to be found out with time." _

_**- Charles Sanford**_

_[...]_

_**Rusty:**__ "You'd need at least a dozen guys doing a combination of cons."  
__**Danny:**__ "Like what, do you think?"  
__**Rusty:**__ "Off the top of my head, I'd say you're looking at a Boeski, a Jim Brown, a Miss Daisy, _

_two Jethros and a Leon Spinks, not to mention the biggest Ella Fitzgerald ever." _

_**- Ocean's Eleven**_

_**

* * *

**_

"Selphie, you look so kawaii!"

Quistis bit down on her lip, glancing from Laguna and Selphie hugging, to Squall, who looked like he wished the earth would split open and swallow him whole. _He's probably thinking he expected Laguna to say something like that,_ she mused, trying her hardest not to laugh out loud.

Selphie glanced over her shoulder mid-hug to give everyone a look that plainly stated: '_See_? Laguna got it right,' then pulled away, letting the President exchange hellos and pleasantries with everyone else.

Quistis waited for her turn, distracting herself with the gorgeous decorations of the palace's dining room. Laguna's capable staff had pulled out all the stops to please their guests, filling the room with sweet-smelling Esthari orchids and setting up a beautiful table.

Quistis hadn't had many chances to dine in Esthar in the past, and she was only vaguely familiar with their dining habits and etiquette. What stood out more than anything was the low, legless table surrounded by a dozen plush, red sitting pillows. Out of respect for the foreigners, Quistis guessed, cutlery had been placed next to each plate along with the traditional chopsticks.

"Admiring our table?" Laguna asked genially, standing in front of her.

"Actually, yes," Quistis said, smiling at him. "Everything looks wonderful, Mr. President, thank you for all this."

Laguna let out a sigh. "How many times, Quistis? It's Laguna, please," he said, and leaned down to kiss her on the cheek.

"I'm sorry," Quistis said, returning the kiss. "Thanks for the invitation, Laguna," she said and followed him toward the table.

Getting every single person in the room to their seats took longer than expected. With Ellone, Kiros and Ward joining them, it was a while before hellos and welcoming embraces were exchanged between everyone. By the time Quistis finally plopped down on her seat, her feet were already killing her. _Every single time,_ she thought ruefully. _Why do I keep wearing heels when I can't stand them?_

A ripple of excited chatter rose through the room once everyone was seated. Ellone in particular was glowing tonight, Quistis noted with a smile. Her life within the Presidential Palace, while certainly peaceful, was no doubt boring at times. She didn't have any other friends to speak of and her condition had always been an obstacle in her social life; she couldn't afford to open up to many people out of fear that her powers would become known.

Over at the head of the table, Laguna wore an expression similar to Quistis's, smiling as he watched Ellone talk to Squall and Irvine. Even Zell's sour mood seemed to have improved a little in her company.

As the kitchen staff entered the dining room to serve the drinks and appetizers, Quistis took advantage of the momentary distraction to slip the heels off her feet. _There. Now if only there was a way to change into my pajamas,_ she thought wistfully. While it was fun to dress up occasionally and attend a black tie event, the last few days lay heavy on her shoulders, making her wish she could enjoy all this food and company in a more comfortable outfit.

"A toast, a toast!" Laguna said, calling everyone's attention to him and reaching for the large pitcher that had been deposited on the table. He took each cup in turn, filling it with a cool, strong-smelling drink Quistis knew as sake. She suspected that even a single, tiny cup of alcohol was enough to put her to sleep right now, but she pushed her cup forward all the same. Kiros was passing it along to Laguna when a gentle knock on the double doors interrupted their dinner.

A tall black man stepped into the dining room. He was either in his late twenties or very early thirties, Quistis guessed, with very short curly hair and a pair of worn-looking, bespectacled light brown eyes. Under any other circumstances, his serious face and compact body may have been imposing, but right now, he seemed tired and slightly apprehensive.

"Mr. President, sir," the young man said, pushing his glasses up his nose. "I'm really sorry to interrupt your dinner-"

Laguna waved a hand airily, smiling at him. "Don't worry about it, Logan. You're here to join us?"

"No, sir, I-"

"Oh come on, you don't have to feel shy. Here, let me introduce you," Laguna said, not giving him a chance to refuse. "Everyone, this is Logan Vale, my right-hand man. This is my son, Squall," he began, and went on to name everyone seated at the table, with the exception of Ellone, Kiros and Ward. Vale nodded at all of them politely, though it was clear he was in a hurry and had only meant to drop in for a quick word.

"Pleased to meet you all," Vale said once Laguna's introductions reached an end. "But I really cannot stay, sir. I simply came to inform you I have to leave for Sanmoku a little earlier than planned," he explained. "I will be gone before dawn, so I wanted to let you know the documents you requested have already been sent to your personal account."

"Thank you, Logan. Really though, won't you have a seat?" Laguna asked again. "There's plenty of food to go around. You had a rough day; kick back and relax a little."

Vale shook his head. "Thank you, sir, but I haven't packed a thing yet," he said. "I should go get ready."

"Are you sure?" Laguna asked.

"You haven't had a bite to eat all day," Ellone piped in. "Uncle is right, you should join us."

"Thank you, again, but I really can't, Miss Loire," Vale insisted.

"I'll have the chef send something to your room, all right?" Laguna said with a sigh, finally accepting defeat. "Get some rest, you look exhausted."

"I will, sir. Have a pleasant evening," Vale said and quietly exited the room.

"Great kid," Laguna said once the doors closed behind Vale, and he turned back to his guests. "Works himself to death, though. See how he wouldn't even stick around for dinner? I've been trying to get him to loosen up a bit, but to no avail."

At the other end of the table, Kiros let out a snort almost in sync with Ward. "You tried to fix him up with Governor Hiroshi's niece," he said, while Ward nodded in agreement.

Laguna reached for the pitcher of sake once more and continued to pour a generous amount in everyone's cup. "She's a lovely girl!" he said, now looking at Rinoa as if he was trying to convince her his ventures into the realm of match-making were perfectly justified. "Pretty, easy-going, smart; she has an honors degree from Gal-Sci."

"She... sounds great," Rinoa said in an attempt to humor him, and picked up her cup.

"And then there was Senator Ogawa's daughter—" Kiros went on.

"Well, I thought if he wasn't into science-y girls, I'd try a girly girl. Fantastic ballet dancer."

"Then Lady Kanajima's daughter—"

"Okay, a _little_ spoiled, but c'mon, she's gorgeous and polite—"

"And _then_…" Kiros said, half-glaring at Laguna. "Governor Taka's _son_."

If he was embarrassed by this tidbit of information getting revealed, Laguna didn't show it. He simply shrugged and filled Quistis's cup, now addressing her. "I figured he wasn't into girls and was just too shy to tell me."

"Well," Quistis said, assuming she was expected to say something back. "It's a possibility, I guess?"

A few seats away from her, Squall drained his cup of sake in one gulp and tried to blend in with the background.

"Ward says you should leave the poor kid alone," Kiros said, translating Ward's vivid hand gestures. "He can get a girlfriend on his own if he wants to. Or a boyfriend, for that matter."

"But he never leaves the palace!" Laguna exclaimed, nearly dropping the pitcher in exasperation.

"He will when he wants to," Kiros said. "Leave him be and make your damned toast."

Pouting, Laguna finished serving everyone and raised his cup, resting his cheek on the balled fist of his free hand. "Cheers, or whatever," he said, followed by a series of mumbles that Quistis couldn't quite make out.

Kiros stood up from his seat and held out his cup, smiling. "To our honored guests," he said. "For all their great work and for giving us the pleasure to spoil them a little tonight. Cheers!"

"Cheers!"

"Cheers!"

"Whoooo! KAMPAI!"

* * *

Seifer counted the little boxes segmenting the screen. Twelve total. The program Jack was running was, simply put, a simulation of multiple monitors all displayed in one single screen. Using it, they could watch the feed of various cameras within Garden at once. On the downside, every separate window was significantly small. If they wanted to keep a closer eye on a particular camera, they needed to zoom in and lose sight of what was going on everywhere else.

Normally, Jack would have gone about this using actual monitors, but they weren't exactly able to draw upon their usual resources tonight. All they had was a laptop and a microphone, set up on the desk before them so Jack could relay orders and information to the team.

"Here's Felix," Seifer said, pointing at the feed of the camera showing the west wing of Balamb Garden.

"Mmm-hmmm," Jack hummed, nodding, and looked up from his work for a second. For the past hour or so, he had been tampering with a new generation cell phone –smart phone, he'd called it- and only glanced up at the screen every now and then. "Shouldn't we be seeing one of Leonhart's men right about now?" he asked.

"They'll be there," Seifer said. "I don't know who's in charge, but they'll be there. He didn't just bolt without leaving someone behind to check things out."

"Is it time?" Nyx asked.

Seifer looked over his shoulder at him. "You ready?"

Nyx nodded.

"All right, let's do this," Seifer said, getting up from his chair.

He made his way over to his room and stepped up on the mattress of the bed, reaching for the vent on the top right corner of the wall adjacent to his bed. Nyx followed suit, helping him dislodge the grid they had loosened about an hour earlier. Seifer pulled it out and laid it down on the mattress, then turned to stare at the dark, gaping hole above them.

"Just like in the movies?" Seifer asked, a little uncertainly.

Jack turned his chair around to look at the pair. "Well... it's not as roomy as you may have been led to believe, but Nyx can fit through.

Seifer grimaced at the hole leading up to the ventilation system. It was narrow, all right. Being the slimmest of them all, Nyx was the only one suited to execute this part of the plan. They'd already had a trial run a couple of hours ago, but this time around, Nyx would have to move for a lot more than ten feet in one direction and there were about a hundred ways this could end horribly.

"I've been thinking..." Seifer said, still looking up at the dark hole. "Maybe you should grab a few more Floats. Keep casting them on yourself until you get to the second floor. You won't make a lot of noise and you don't run the risk of crashing through the ceiling if the pipes aren't strong enough to hold your weight."

"They'll hold," Jack said. "We tested it-"

"Just in case," Seifer interrupted him, looking at Nyx. "Draw a few more from me."

"You'll need them more than he will," Jack muttered, eyes still focused on the phone's screen as he tested whatever it was he'd been trying to accomplish.

"I'll have enough," Seifer insisted. "Draw five more."

Nyx did as he was told and held up his right hand, concentrating. Seifer felt the familiar rush of magic flowing through his veins, then the sharp, brief sting of it leaving his body. "Got 'em?" he asked Nyx, letting out a shudder as the last shred of energy got sucked out.

Nyx nodded and began to check his backpack to make sure he had everything he was going to need. Once every item had been accounted for, he handed Seifer a small flashlight and stepped up right underneath the hole.

Seifer bent down on the mattress and put his hands together, forming a step to help Nyx up into the vent. Nyx put one hand against the wall, placed the other on Seifer's shoulder and one foot on his cupped hands. "One, two," Seifer counted. "Three," he said, and stood up, giving Nyx a boost as he did so.

Jack approached the bed as well, leaving his post to see Nyx off. He was holding the phone in his hand, which he now handed to Seifer. "Give this to Nyx," he said.

"Why does he need a phone?" Seifer asked, examining the contraption in his hand. "We can talk to each other through the commlink. Isn't that what you gave us all mics and earpieces for?"

"This phone is... special," Jack said, grinning. "Nyx knows what to do with it."

Though a little angry he had been left out of the loop, Seifer had had enough experience working with Jack to know not to doubt him by now. At least when it came to technology. He handed to phone to Nyx, who placed it into his backpack and held one hand out, a spell forming between his gloved fingers.

The Float spell hit his chest and as soon as it lifted him up, Nyx twisted his body around, now facing the ceiling of the vent. Seifer reached up and handed him the flashlight.

"Don't forget to switch back every now and then," Jack said. "Restore blood flow and all that."

Without a word, Nyx secured the flashlight between his teeth and set off, moving quickly and silently like a spider across the top surface of the vent. Seifer and Jack watched him go until they could no longer make out the light source or his shape.

"Hyne, lookit 'im go... Jonah was right," Seifer said, shaking his head in disbelief. "He really is like a damn monkey."

Jack let out a chuckle, nodding in agreement. "You sure you wanna go down to the MD level yourself? Nyx can probably pull it off in two minutes flat."

"I said I was gonna do it and I will," Seifer said, putting the vent back in place. "I'm not gonna sit pretty while you do all the work."

Jack returned to his seat behind the desk, taking a quick glance at the monitors to make sure he hadn't missed anything. "When you're done," he told Seifer. "Come here so I can explain what your equipment does."

"We've already been over this," Seifer said with a grunt, pushing the vent into the metal frame and making sure it stayed put.

"Yeah, like you didn't forget the second I told you," Jack said, letting out a scoff. "We'll go over it again until I'm certain you got it. Besides, you may have to fly solo; we don't even know if you'll be able to get a signal down there for me to walk you through it."

Seifer hopped off the bed and joined Jack at the desk, pulling the ziploc bag containing all his equipment open.

"Leave the camera," Jack said. "If you can't figure out how to pin a small camera on your shirt, then we have far bigger problems than getting access to the camera network."

"Har, har," Seifer drawled. "And I thought we already had access."

"No, we don't."

"What the hell do you call _that_ then?" Seifer said, pointing at the laptop screen.

"Look mate, I'm doing about a thousand things at once," Jack explained. "I can't keep worrying someone will notice I hacked into the surveillance system on top of everything else. It took all I had to even enter the network and that was a pretty silent hack. I don't want to risk doing anything bigger, so we're going to get access physically. It'll give me some peace of mind, let me concentrate on everything else."

"Physically?" Seifer asked.

"The spider," Jack replied. "Once you implant it, I can use it to monitor the feed from there, mess with it any way I want and no-one will ever notice. If we're going to cover our tracks, we need to trick whoever's watching with fake feed. If I try doing that with another messy hack I might get caught, but with the spider in, I'll be undetectable," he said, pulling out the small, transparent little box he had given Seifer earlier on. "Like I said before everyone took off, all you gotta do is clip this on the right conduit on the server."

"And how do I know which conduit is the right one?" Seifer asked.

"You don't," Jack said. "You'll have to try them one by one. There will be a spot in the server room marked as the surveillance network, but there's going to be a lot of wires to choose from. We want the main conduit for the MD level, the one where the feeds from the all the cameras down there end up in. You'll know you've hit the jackpot when the signal on the receiver shows you any of the MD level rooms," he said, pointing at the PDA-like device. "Now, on to using the receiver..."

Sinking into his seat, Seifer stared at the ceiling gloomily. "I've changed my mind, let Nyx do it."

Jack tossed a small booklet on Seifer's lap. "Stop whining and read the fucking manual."

Shaking his head, Seifer opened up the manual and began to read, as Jack shifted his attention back to the laptop. All joking aside, he really would prefer it if Nyx or anyone else was assigned to deal with the technological aspect of his role in the operation. Complicated machinery, while a welcome commodity, always confused the hell out of him. He was getting dangerously close to falling asleep as he read the booklet on how to use the receiver, when he saw out of the corner of his eye that Jack was no longer watching the camera feeds.

Instead, he had opened up a couple of applications, none of which rang any bells to Seifer, and was typing away. Seifer squinted at the black window, watching Jack enter what he assumed were commands of some sort. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"You said Leonhart is baiting us, so now I'm returning the favor," Jack said.

"I thought you said you didn't wan to risk another hack," Seifer pointed out.

"This one, I _want_ them to see. If his men won't come out themselves, we'll smoke them out."

* * *

Xu paced back and forth the room, certain she must've dug a veritable canyon on the floor by now. The situation on the third floor surveillance room was going smoothly, so far.

Nida and Shizuka, along with Aaron Xyphias, their resident network technician, were her team for the night. For nearly half an hour, however, Xyphias was the only one doing anything other than trying to kill the time. His pale face was illuminated by the glare of a dozen monitors, as he kept a close eye on what was taking place in every part of Garden covered by the camera network.

Shizuka was catching up on paperwork as they waited, while Nida, netbook on his lap, kept an eye on one of his on-line auctions. Every now and then, he would mutter something about a '_moron ChocomanRAWKS97_' and then started typing and clicking.

In Squall's absence, Xu was not only responsible for the whole Garden, she also had to watch out for Seifer's every move. Squall was positive his team was going to try to get access to the brig and talk to the prisoner, and Xu had been instructed to make things difficult for them, but let them think they had succeeded all the same.

While she was excited at the prospect of catching Almasy red-handed, Xu was a little worried at how they'd yet to detect any sign of suspicious activity.

"YESSSSSSS! FIRST EDITION _CHOCOMAN AND CHICOBOY_ ISSUE 47 IS _MINE_, BITCH!" Nida yelled in one breath, arms aloft.

Xu, along with every one else in the room, turned to gape at him. Shizuka in particular had nearly fallen off her chair at the sudden exclamation and was still clutching her heart in shock.

_That fucking idiot._

"Are you kidding me?" Xu snarled at him. "We're supposed to be doing actual _work_ here, and you-"

"Guys."

"Oh lighten up," Nida said, grinning broadly at his laptop. "It's not like anything has happened-"

"Guys."

"I don't care!" Xu spat back. "Even if we have to sit here staring at the walls for ten hours, you're going to-"

"Okay, okay-"

"GUYS!"

"_WHAT_?" Xu snapped at Xyphias.

"I got something," Xyphias said, pointing at the screen.

Xu hurried over to the control panel, leaning over Xyphias's shoulder. Nida and Shizuka soon followed suit, all looking at the spot where Xyphias was pointing. "There's three of them, heading out of dorm 24C."

Xu squinted at the screen, making out the silhouettes of the three men in question. They were Seifer's men, all right; the medic, the short one and the tall one all the girls in Garden seemed to have gone gaga over. "Where's Seifer?" she asked.

"Hasn't left the dorm. The medic is in the east wing," Xyphias said, pointing at the monitor showing an overview of the east wing. "Looks like he's heading toward the library. This one is reading the directory and the guy with the silver hair is in the west wing. There he is, he's going into the cafeteria."

"Hmmm... Why aren't they together?" Xu wondered out loud, frowning.

"Why should they be?" Nida asked.

"Because they're the 'new guys.' They all came together to an unfamiliar place," Xu explained. "They have no-one to talk to aside from each other and the first time they're out and about they split up? What, did they all suddenly decide to make friends separately?" she said, letting out a scoff. "I'm not buying it. They look like they're spreading out to me. One person takes the east wing, the other the west wing, and the third one takes the main hall."

Xyphias fixed Xu with a puzzled stare. "Spreading out for what?"

That, she did not know. It was, of course, possible that they were only taking a walk, but she found it hard to believe that on a night she'd been told to keep a look-out, Seifer's lackeys had decided to take a tour of Garden.

"No idea," Xu said, shaking her head. "But I wanna know what they're up to."

"You're being a little dramatic, don't you think?" Nida said. "They're only walking around, they're not doing anyth-"

"Oh, yes they are," Xyphias suddenly said, bolting for the computer at the far end of the room. A small window had popped up in the middle of the screen, flashing red. "We have a security breach."

_Shit,_ Xu cursed inwardly. A security breach at a time like this? It couldn't be Seifer, he wasn't _that_ big of an idiot to orchestrate a distraction on such a grand scale to keep their eyes away from the brig. Then again, subtlety had never been his forte, either. It couldn't possibly be a coincidence that someone was trying to enter Garden right when Seifer was expected to make a move.

"Where?" Xu asked, her eyes sweeping the outer ring monitors for the intruder.

"Not a physical breach," Xyphias said. "Someone's hacking into the database."

"Where in the database?"

"Huh," Xyphias said, staring at the screen in surprise. "Written exam schedules. Maybe it's not them, after all. We do get the occasional rookie hacker trying to snoop around just to prove he can-"

"Yeah, and maybe the Yuletide faeries really _do_ bring us snow every winter," Xu quipped. "It's Seifer, sneaking around like the rat he is. Keep an eye on the breach. Don't block them, watch what they're trying to gain access to and only stop them when you really _have_ to. We're heading down to the first floor. Shizuka, you take the medic. Nida takes the short round and I'm going for the pretty boy."

* * *

Rhys stood with his back against the wall next to a large potted plant, watching the students and staff walk along the main hall.

While Balamb Garden was normally filled with life and chatter during the day, at this hour, it was mostly the older students who were out and about as it was drawing closer to curfew. That particular situation didn't bode very well for their plans.

He would have to find someone young for what they needed to do, preferably a kid. Someone who wouldn't easily question what they were asked to do, or realize the larger implications if the Commander caught wind of what was going on.

Rhys reminded himself that he needed to be patient and waited, trying to make the best choice out of who was available. There was enough in their plan that depended on pure luck; the very least he could do was eliminate chance as best as he could.

"Can you see me?" he whispered into the microphone pinned on the neckline of his shirt.

_"Hardly,"_ said Jack on the other end of the line. _"The camera can't pick you up very well from this angle. Stay there; it's a good spot. Any progress?"_

"Slim pickins," Rhys replied, grimacing. "Mostly teenagers. Not many kids roaming about at this hour."

_"Don't rush it, but don't wait too long either. We have ten minutes breathing room, at best."_

"Got it," Rhys said, and continued to watch the student body.

He kept an eye on his watch, hoping he would be able to stay within the time frame. At some point near the six minute mark, he spotted them. Two kids, no older than eight, were making their way from the library down the hall where he was stationed; they were probably heading back to their dorms.

Rhys quickly went over what he and his team had discussed as he saw them approach. _Don't call them kids; they'll think you're being condescending. And don't tell them to keep this quiet, 'cause you'll make them suspicious and they sure as hell _won't_ keep it quiet. Don't tell them why you need this done unless they ask._

"Hey guys," he said, trying to get their attention.

One of them, a tall, red-haired kid, turned to acknowledge him. He gave his friend, a more innocent-looking blond kid, a gentle nudge with his elbow.

"Wanna make one thousand gil?" Rhys asked, holding up a crisp, blue, one thousand gil bill.

The two kids looked at each other questioningly.

"Each?" Rhys added, revealing a second bill right behind the first one.

"You got it," said the tall kid, and sporting an identical grin with his blond partner, approached Rhys. He made a move to grab the money out of his hands, but Rhys held it up higher.

"First you hear me out," he said. "I need a computer whiz and someone cool enough to do a bit of acting. You two look like you can pull it off, no sweat. Am I right?"

The two kids nodded enthusiastically. Rhys wasn't certain whether they liked having their egos stroked or if they simply wanted the money and were willing to say yes to anything.

"Okay, blond ambition, this one's for you," he began. "You know the computer lab up in the second floor classroom? You know how to use the terminals there, right?"

"_Duh,_" said the blond kid, rolling his eyes at Rhys. "A five-year-old knows how to do _that_."

"You got access to a Guardian Force yet?" Rhys asked.

"Yup!" the kid declared proudly. "I can borrow Leviathan any time I want!"

"Awesome," Rhys went on. "I want you to go up to the classroom, pick any terminal you want and log in with your student account. Update your ID for access to Leviathan, then go get the stone. With me so far?"

"Pick a PC, log in, open the safe to get the summoning stone," the kid repeated.

"Excellent!" Rhys said, grinning. "Now once that is done, close it and go back to the terminal. And theeeeen," he trailed off, checking his watch. It was nearly eight twenty. It would probably be another five minutes by the time the kid got to the safe. That gave them a little over half an hour to get everything done before curfew. _Cutting it close, but..._ "Wait until a couple of minutes to nine to go return it."

"Why do we need to do all that?" the tall kid asked.

"We're testing out a new security system for the Guardian Force safe," Rhys said. "We were supposed to have it done by today, but we fell a little behind. It's gotta be up and running by tomorrow, so we have to test it now while the classroom is empty. You up for it?"

"I guess..." the blond kid replied, looking a little less excited about the whole process. "But what am I supposed to do in there for that long?"

"You like _World of War Online_?" Rhys asked, referring to the popular online game.

"Yeah, but we're not allowed to play on weekdays," the kid said ruefully. "They lock up the game during the week and only let us play on weekends just for two hours each."

"Well, as a reward for helping me out," Rhys said, grinning at the kid. "I'll unlock the game. You can play while you're waiting."

"Just for today?"

"Nope. Once we unlock it it'll stay that way unless anyone finds out, so it's up to you guys to keep it on the down low. Still interested?"

"TOTALLY!"

"Okay, then go on and head upstairs to the classroom," Rhys said. "I'm gonna give your friend here the money; you can have it once we're done. I'm counting on you, mate. You'll pull it off?"

The blond kid let out a whoop in response and sprinted off toward the elevator, looking exhilarated.

"What am I supposed to do?" asked the tall one, watching his friend run off and looking more than a little disappointed he couldn't join him.

"_You_ are going to play a game of Triple Triad with me while we wait," Rhys said, pulling out a stack of cards out of his pocket.

"That's it?" the tall kid asked, arching both eyebrows.

"Well, I was gonna ask you to keep a look-out on the second floor," Rhys said. "But I decided against it. Of course, if you'd rather do _that_ than play a game with me-"

"No, no! I just- I get a thousand bucks and free WoWO just for playing cards with you?" the kid asked in disbelief.

"Yup."

"Awesome!"

"Go get us a couple of sodas," Rhys told the boy, handing him another bill. "I'll set up the game and wait for you here, all right?"

The boy grabbed the bill and sped off to the cafeteria, now decidedly more cheerful about the way Rhys had delegated the duties between him and his friend. Grinning, Rhys leaned down to speak into his microphone.

"Got the kid," he said. "Tell Nyx to be expecting a blond boy, eight-ish, wearing jeans and a white t-shirt with a moogle print on it."

* * *

Xu stepped inside the cafeteria, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible while she looked for Felix.

She found him by the counters, perusing the food on display. A gaggle of female cadets stood nearby, all of them stealing glances at him and whispering to one another in between giggles. Eventually, they pushed one of the girls in their midst forward, urging her on. The girl shot them an obviously fake glare, then marched on ahead, tapping him on the shoulder.

Xu watched the whole display with a grimace of disgust on her face. If there was a gene that made most women turn into insipid morons at the side of a handsome man, Xu was incredibly glad she was missing it. Honestly, he wasn't even _that_ good-looking. He looked more like a woman, for Hyne's sake, all smooth skin, slim fingers and delicate eyelashes.

However, feminine-looking or not, if this Felix person was like most men, he would have no qualms whatsoever about taking the cadet back to his dorm. Xu decided she had seen enough of the girl's transparent attempt at flirting and stepped forward to intervene. She was _not_ going to miss out on a chance to grill one of Seifer's men for something as silly as hormones.

"...whole line every morning, so make sure you get here early," the girl was saying as Xu approached. "Me and my friends already grabbed some, if you're int-"

"Enjoying ourselves, Bennett?" Xu said, putting up her best you're-in-trouble-now smirk.

The girl turned around, startled. "SeeD Chang! I-"

"Finished with scrub duty early tonight?" Xu supplied, cocking her head to the side. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you supposed to be in detention from seven to nine every night until the end of November?"

"Yes, but-"

"Does Instructor Prewett know you're here when you're supposed to be working?"

"No, but-"

"Then I suggest you go and report to him that you're gallivanting around Garden instead of scrubbing the locker room floors clean with a toothbrush."

"Instructor Prewett never mentioned a tooth-"

"_I_ mentioned a toothbrush," Xu finished, arms crossed in front of her chest. "Off you go, now."

The girl, looking extremely disappointed not only for the missed opportunity to talk to Felix, but also for the added workload, mumbled "Yes, SeeD Chang," and headed for the cafeteria exit, ignoring the inquiring looks from her friends.

Felix, who had been watching the exchange with a slightly amused grin on his face, turned to Xu. "Thanks," he said, smiling at her gratefully.

"No problem. Watch your back around here, they can be rabid at times," Xu replied. Without another word, she shifted her gave over to the glass display, pretending to look for something to order.

She didn't want to betray the fact that she had come looking for him specifically. If he had been instructed to keep an eye out, or perhaps even distract her from what was truly going on tonight, he would strike up conversation again. If not... _I'll think of something_, Xu thought.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Felix looking at her curiously. He looked like he was trying to figure something out. Perhaps he simply wasn't used to being ignored by women.

"You're Xu, right?" he asked.

She turned to meet his gaze. "Yes. How did you know?" she asked.

"You pretty much run the place along with Commander Leonhart," he explained. "I've heard of you."

"...And?" she said, looking at him knowingly.

"…...and Seifer may have mentioned you," Felix admitted, grinning.

"Of course he did," Xu said, one hand resting against her hip. "Let me guess... the word 'bitch' came up a lot."

"Uhh... I plead the fifth," Felix said, flashing her a grin that was most likely designed to make lesser women keel over.

If Xu was being honest with herself, her knees buckled just the slightest bit.

"Care to prove him wrong?" Felix added.

That sobered Xu up immediately. _Did he just...?_ "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Seifer is being a wanker and refused to show us around," Felix explained. "I figure I'm going to be staying here till March, so I can't lock myself up in my dorm and wait until he feels like going out. So, if you're not busy with anything, d'you wanna take a walk with me, give me a bit of a tour? Won't take long."

Xu gave him a long, calculating look. Was this flirting, a chance to scope her out, or something altogether different? "How does that relate to me proving I'm not a bitch?" she asked.

Felix shrugged. "I'm a pretty good judge of character. I think I'll be able to tell if Seifer was telling the truth or not after spending some time with you."

Xu carefully considered her options. It didn't take a genius to see that Felix was a perfect choice for a spy placed opposite a woman. He was handsome, he could be polite, soft-spoken... She briefly wondered just how many female SeeDs had been taken in by the charming package and had promptly spilled whatever secrets he'd been after in the past.

Of course, it was always possible that all he needed to do was distract her from what was about to happen –whatever that may be- and taking a walk with him would be falling right into the trap. Then again, she reasoned, Xyphias was watching the camera network and he would undoubtedly let her know the moment he saw anything suspicious. After all, she was supposed to let Seifer's men think they had them fooled.

The best she could do right now, she decided, was accept the offer and see if she could learn anything about the Galbadian newcomers. "I don't even know your name," she said, trying to sound a little coy.

Felix shook his head in exasperation. "Right. Name. Hyne, I completely forgot," he said, holding out his hand for her to shake. "Felix Von Troy. And you're Xu...?"

"Chang," Xu said, shaking hands with Felix. "Well, all right. I guess I could spare some time to show you around," she added, checking her watch. "We still have little more than half an hour before curfew."

"Thanks," Felix said, beaming at her. "I'll just get us a sandwich or something to eat on the way. What'll you have?"

"Tuna melt," she said, digging into her pocket to fish out some money.

Felix waved off her intention to pay for her share with a flick of his hand. "It's on me," he said. "Just give me a minute and we'll be on our way."

"Sure," said Xu, and she leaned against the marble column behind her, watching him closely.

* * *

Though he was never one to complain, Nyx had to admit; he was getting a little tired of waiting inside a cold vent, bent into an uncomfortable position. Jack had wired in to let him know he should be expecting a blond kid any moment now, and Nyx couldn't wait until he was able move again.

Watching through the grid, he kept an eye on the classroom below. For nearly ten minutes now, not a single student had entered; they were no doubt occupied with more fun activities until curfew. It gave Nyx enough time to loosen the grid in preparation, but once that was dealt with, he was left with little else to do other than stare at the smooth, grey surface of the vent.

At long last, the cadet Jack had mentioned showed up, stomping across the room in a state of glee. He fit the description, anyway: close to eight, blond, clad in a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt depicting a moogle at the front. If he wasn't the boy in question, Nyx was about to find out.

Thankfully, the child hurried over to one of the terminals and after a few seconds of typing, stood up to approach the large cabinet in the far back of the classroom. There was no doubt about it; he was the right person.

Nyx inched up closer to the grid, the spell already forming in his mind. According to Jack, the cabinet used to store the Guardian Force summoning stones was protected by a strict security system. Unless opened with a valid SeeD ID, alarms were rigged to go off and the whole room locked up immediately, effectively stopping the thief from escaping. It was futile to set up a complicated safe for something that needed to be accessed by young students, so the Balamb Garden SeeDs had decided to enforce security on the room instead of the actual cabinet.

Nyx only had a small window of time to act. He had to access the cabinet only after the cadet got it open, and he had to retrieve the stone he was after as soon as possible. Nyx prepared himself, ready to make his move as soon as the safe was open.

The boy slid his SeeD ID through the slit on the security lock and the light turned green. He opened the safe and began looking for the summoning stone he was after.

_Now_, Nyx said to himself, and aimed the Stop spell straight for the child. The spell's effect was immediate; the boy froze in place, but to any onlooker, it would look as if he was still perusing the stones. There was no time to waste, however: whoever was watching the camera feed in the surveillance room would get suspicious if the child remained completely still for more than a couple of minutes.

"You have it?" he whispered into his microphone.

_"Yeah," _Jack said. _"I'm uploading the still to your phone right now." _

As quickly as he could, Nyx pushed the grid out and carefully placed it down. With his last Float spell still in effect, he crawled out of the vent, speeding across the ceiling. He reached the other end of the classroom, right above the Instructor's desk, where the security camera had been set up, watching the whole room. He pulled out the phone he had been given by Jack and repeated the process in his head. _Unhook the camera, plug the phone in. Do it fast enough, it won't register as more than a blip._

Biting down on his lower lip, Nyx pulled out the jack connecting the camera to the network and swiftly plugged the phone in.

_"It's done. Go, go, GO!"_

With the camera network now registering nothing but a still image of the boy standing in front of the open cabinet, Nyx cast Dispel on himself, landing onto the floor with a dull thud. He sprinted across the classroom, coming to a stop right behind the boy.

Immediately, he examined the stones, looking for the right one. The Diablos summoning stone, Seifer claimed, was a sleek onyx one. Among a sea of brightly colored stones, it wasn't hard to discern. He reached over the cadet's shoulder and pulled it out.

The stone reacted as soon as his fingers closed around it, emitting a faint wave of coldness. For a second there, he feared something far worse was about to happen. He'd had no experience with Guardian Forces in the past, and had no idea if the stone was supposed to acknowledge his presence at all in the first place. His every hair standing on end, Nyx froze, watching his palm closely.

The stone's temperature didn't change; it simply lay there, looking plain, black and, for all appearances, like any regular stone.

_"Grey Two? Are you nearly done? It's already been forty seconds, you have to hurry."_

Letting out a breath he wasn't even aware he'd been holding, Nyx placed the stone into his backpack and dashed across the classroom once more. He cast Float on himself again, rising all the way up to the ceiling. He plugged the phone out, putting everything back in place by reconnecting the camera, and sped back to the vent.

He aimed a quick Dispel at the boy, lingering only long enough to see if it had worked.

Completely oblivious that anything whatsoever had happened, the boy picked out the stone he was after and locked the safe, returning to the terminal he had been using a couple of minutes ago.

Certain he had succeeded, Nyx crawled his way down the vent, hurrying back to the dorm where Seifer and Jack awaited.

* * *

Spotting a free bench in the distance, Felix pointed straight ahead. "There, found an empty one," he told Xu. "Let's go take a seat."

He sat down on the wooden bench, looking around the quad curiously. It was nearly pitch dark outside, not to mention a little cold, but he and Xu had both decided to finish their snacks before heading off to see the rest of Balamb Garden.

Xu took a seat next to him, carefully tearing the wrapping off her sandwich before taking a large bite.

_Getting her away from the main hall was only he first step_, Felix mused. He was certain Xu had been sent to keep an eye on him, and he didn't have the faintest idea what he was going to say to maintain the illusion that all he wanted was some company. What on earth was there to talk about with a woman he didn't know?

"Pretty different," he said, still examining the quad.

"What's different?" Xu asked.

"This whole place," Felix replied. "Not at all like Galbadia Garden."

"How so?"

"Well, you have a quad for one thing," Felix said. "We don't. There isn't really a place to hang out in other than the cafeteria. Or the basketball and hockey fields, if you count those."

"It's nice, I guess."

"Yeah... nice," Felix said, staring at his sandwich. _Great, now what?_

He could tell the whole situation was extremely awkward for her, too. Barely two minutes into their walk and they were at a loss for what to say next. Thankfully, as Felix was agonizing over a new subject, Xu spoke.

"So how long have you been a SeeD?" she asked.

"Six years," Felix answered. "Made it when I was seventeen and I'm twenty three now. You?"

"Same," Xu said. "Well," she added, licking some mayonnaise off her lower lip. "I made it at sixteen and I'm twenty two now, but yeah, six years, too."

"Wow, sixteen," Felix said, impressed. "That's young. You must be pretty g-"

_"Seifer's nearly at the quad."_

Felix nearly choked on his mouthful. If Xu had heard Jack's voice coming in through the hidden earpiece, she didn't show it. Wanting to avoid disaster either way, Felix suddenly sprang up, shoving the rest of his sandwich into his mouth and wrinkling the wrapping paper into a little ball.

"I'ngh gun. 'Oo?"

Xu looked up at him, both her eyebrows arched. "What?"

_"He's invisible, but he can still bump into people, so make sure you keep her away from the hatch. Scratch your nose if you heard me."_

Felix swallowed the large bite with some difficulty, scratching his nose. He coughed a little, cleared his throat, then addressed Xu again. "I said I'm done. You?"

"Not yet, but if you want to go-"

"No, no, it's fine!" Felix hurried to say. "I'll wait for you, take your time. Just wondering if you were done so I could throw this along with yours in the garbage," he said, indicating the little ball of wrapping paper in his hand. "Be right back," he said, and made his way to one of the garbage bins nearby.

With his back turned to Xu, Felix had time to compose himself somewhat. If Seifer was already on his way, it meant that Nyx's part in getting Diablos had been a success. Finding a way to work without being seen by the cameras was their biggest issue, one they had to resolve using various methods; one of them was using Diablos's infamous ability to turn the person junctioned invisible to both humans and beasts. And conceivably cameras.

There were only two ways down to the MD level. One of them was, naturally, through the elevator. Even with the invisibility aspect on the table, using the elevator was out of the question; doors opening and elevators operating of their own accord would raise suspicions.

This left them with the only other option: the waterways. According to Jack's blueprints, the waterways running throughout Balamb Garden were all directed toward the quad. The water went down a small waterfall and over to the MD level, where it was cleansed and pumped back up to the ground floor again.

Getting down to the MD level was Seifer's problem. All Felix needed to concern himself with at the moment, was making sure Xu stayed out of the way so Seifer had a clear path to access the waterway maintenance hatch under the waterfall.

Felix tossed the wrapping paper into the garbage bin and was about to get back to Xu and keep her occupied, when she showed up right next to him.

"I'm done, too," Xu said, tossing the wrapping of her sandwich in as well. "Shall we?"

"Uhhhh... No?" Felix said, turning around to face her.

"No?" Xu repeated, frowning at him. "Didn't you-?"

"Yes. Buuuut, why don't we stick around a little longer?" he suggested. _Friggin' Hyne, did she have to finish her damned sandwich _now_? Talk about horrible timing._ "It's nice out."

"It's the coldest winter in nearly a hundred years, according to the news," Xu said in a dead-pan voice.

"Technically, it's not winter yet. Still November," Felix said, grinning. Xu did not look amused. _Damn, tough crowd. _"You want my jacket?" he offered.

_"Bloody hell, are you trying to blow your damned cover? What the heck are you saying?"_

"You're not wearing a jacket," Xu pointed out.

Well, that much was true. He was dressed in the casual SeeD attire and taking out his uniform jacket meant walking around in a tank top. "I meant this one," he said, pointing at the jacket of his uniform and trying to will his voice not to crack.

"Are you serious?" Xu asked, looking at him as if she feared for his sanity. "You'll freeze."

"Hey, I'm Trabian," he said, grinning. "I'm used to the cold."

"You don't sound Trabian."

_For fuck's sake-_ "I've been living in Galbadia for many years," Felix said. "I hide the accent well. Want me to say something in Trabian?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm starting to think you're high as a kite," Xu said, seizing him up.

_"Seifer's in. End the torture _now_."_

"I'm not, I was just trying to be friendly," Felix said, resisting the urge to let out a sigh of relief. "Anyway, you're right, we'd better get going."

Before Xu could say more, Felix grabbed her by the hand and hurried toward the exit of the quad. Xu yanked her hand away, looking bewildered and more than a little angry, but she remained silent and followed him nonetheless.

* * *

With a dull thud, Seifer landed on the concrete floor below.

He swerved slightly on the spot, glancing to his right. A few centimeters off target and he would have fallen straight into the water. The maintenance point was nothing but a few square feet of concrete that spread below the hatch. The panel controlling the flow of the waterways was located right against the wall vertical to the floor, and the rest of the room was filled with water.

He didn't bother contacting his peers. He was about to get even wetter, so the small earpiece would have to stay safely tucked into the ziploc bag. Besides, the waterfall-like sound of the water current flowing down through the grates was deafening; he wouldn't be able to hear a thing.

Crouching down by the edge of the floor, Seifer examined the small facility carefully. According to the blueprints Jack had dug up, the water was being led down to the MD level and into a refinement plant. The only way down to the plant that didn't require someone to be a member of the maintenance staff was through the grate the water current was flowing through, and he had no idea what he was going to face once –and if- he managed to get the grate open.

Making sure every delicate piece of equipment he was carrying was secure in the waterproof bag, Seifer mentally removed Diablos's concealment ability since there were no cameras to watch out of in the maintenance room. He took a deep breath and dove straight into the water below.

The moment he fell in, the ice-cold water attacked him mercilessly; every single pore on his body screamed in protest. He panicked, for just a split second, and took in a sharp breath that filled his mouth with water, before gathering his wits and making his way up. His head broke the surface and he went into a coughing fit, trying to breathe while his whole body rocked with tremors.

He paused just long enough to regulate his breathing, then set about trying to dislodge the grate and end the torture as soon as possible.

He was thankful to see that the grate wasn't bolted in place, but it was still large enough to make it impossible for him to pull it out with his bare hands. Try as he might, he wasn't able to move it a single inch, and the freezing water made him all the more impatient. Realizing it was time to resort to his stock of magic, Seifer pulled his hand back and cast a Float spell.

There was a loud groan, the sound of metal rubbing against metal, and the grate lifted a few millimeters, now effectively hovering between the metal frame. With one hand, Seifer pulled hard and the grate slipped out with ease. As soon as the obstacle was out of the way, the water current rushed through the gaping hole, carrying Seifer along with it.

_Shit. Don't-_

He reached out blindly, trying to hold on to something. His hand closed around the metal frame that had been holding the grate, but years upon years of water passing through had coated it with a thick layer of slime. His fingers slipped, and before he could do more than gasp, he was free-falling down through a dark shaft.

_Float, float, float, float, floatfloatfloat- _"FLOAT!"

Like someone had wrapped a hook around his navel and jerked upward, Seifer felt himself come to a sudden halt in mid-air, his breath hitching in his throat.

He had fallen far enough that the scant light coming through the open grate all the way up wasn't illuminating a single thing. He couldn't see what was around him or where he was going, but at the very least, he was descending at a slow pace and was out of immediate danger. More than anything, he was glad he weighed enough so that the spell couldn't carry him upwards, but only barely halted a rapid descent downward; otherwise all their planning would've been for naught.

A sudden wave of hysterical laughter overtook him, as the adrenaline rush settled down and he was able to comprehend what had just happened. He was frozen, balls to bones, he had nearly suffered a heart-attack, he was struggling to breathe, and yet he could. _Not. Stop. Laughing._

By the time he was able to compose himself, he had floated down for what had felt like at least a couple of dozen feet, and there was still no end in sight. _Fuck, how deep is this thing?_ he wondered, and decided to start trying to find a way through to the core.

He knew there was a wall close-by, so he leaned all the way to his right, stretching as much as he could to see if he could touch anything solid. He wondered whether his current situation was anything like the zero-gravity field generated by the Mobile Type 8 robot in the Lunatic Pandora. Could he actually swim through the air, or would he spend a few futile minutes, thrashing about and achieving absolutely nothing?

There was probably a very lengthy chapter on the mechanics of the Float spell somewhere in his SeeD books, but he had never really read any of that shit thoroughly enough for anything to stick. Someone like Manu or Trepe would probably know exactly what to do right now.

_Fuck it; I'll give it a shot. It's not like anyone can see me flapping my arms around like a cartoon._

Feeling incredibly stupid, Seifer stretched his arms out and swung them back roughly, in a motion similar to swimming. In the stark darkness, it was hard to see if he was making any progress, but he felt like he had moved. He tried it a few more times, becoming increasingly convinced that it was all in his head and nothing was really happening, until he swung himself to the right one last time, and his head bumped against something solid.

Ignoring the blooming pain, he threw his arms forward, trying to latch on to anything that might be protruding. His left hand closed around _something, _something sleek and hard, but he didn't even stop to wonder what it was. All that mattered was that he had come to a stop at long last, his legs hovering behind him like he was suspended in space.

With his free hand, he reached over his shoulder to his pack. It was probably going to take a while to open it one-handed, but if he hurried, he might slip and that was the very last thing he wanted right now. After a few minutes of fumbling around, he managed to dip his hand into the pack and pawed at the few objects inside until his fingers clasped something slim and cylindrical. He pulled it out, ran his thumb over the item for a couple of seconds and a thin ray of light shot out, piecing through the darkness.

_Let there be light_, Seifer thought with a grin.

He placed the small flashlight between his teeth to free his second hand, and reached forward to grab onto the mysterious object that had halted his fall. It turned out to be a thick metallic rod bent into a 'U' shape, fastened against the wall.

_Okay... Now let's see just where the hell we are,_ Seifer said to himself, and began to move his head around to redirect the beam of the flashlight.

What he had initially perceived to be a shaft he had fallen through was actually a giant room. From what little he could make out, and in combination with what he had seen in the blueprints Jack had shown him, Seifer realized he was now stuck in the area separating Balamb Garden's outer walls and the large cylindrical room that made up the MD Level. Jack had known this empty space would be there, but its purpose still made little sense to Seifer.

Why use all this room to redirect the water to the plant below? Why not simply use pipes?

Shaking his head, Seifer pointed the light at the wall in front of him and the metal rod he was holding onto. The rod turned out to be a single step of a ladder going all the way up to the hole he had fallen through. The wall itself wasn't, as Seifer had expected, smooth. In fact, it didn't look like a wall at all.

He had to double, and triple, and quadruple check just to make sure he wasn't seeing things, but the barrier before him resembled, for lack of a better term, a block of flats. It was separated in levels, much like a building would be separated in floors, and everywhere he looked, he could see thick, round slabs of glass jutting out of the green metal that made up the wall. They were similar to the portholes of a ship.

_The shelter,_ Seifer suddenly realized. _Holy shit._

He remembered when, two years ago, the mechanics in Galbadia Garden had told him they could make the academy fly. He hadn't given it a second thought back then, not at all curious about the sort of engines hidden in the bowels of the giant structure. All he'd cared about was making the damn thing airborne. Earlier this year, during a discussion with Jonah, he would learn that all Gardens were, in fact, shelters.

The reason this wasn't common knowledge, Jonah had told him, was because the original structures came from Centra. The mechanics who had built them were long dead and they had taken whatever additional secrets the Gardens may hide to their graves.

_So this is why the blueprints showed so many entrances connecting the air pocket to the inner core,_ Seifer realized. If everything he could see before his eyes were rooms to house the people using the shelter, it made sense that they connected to the center of the MD Level.

The only problem right now was getting into one of these rooms.

_First things first..._

Seifer closed his eyes and tightened his grip around the metal rod. With a small mental flick, he cast Dispel on himself, and his body regained its gravitational pull once more. He secured his legs through the ladder and against the wall, giving his arms a well-needed break as he took a seat on one of the steps.

He slipped the flashlight into his pocket, and went through the small supply of equipment stored within the ziploc bag to retrieve his earpiece. He put it on and started skipping through static, hoping he could get a strong enough signal to reach Jack.

"Grey Zero, this is Grey Leader. Grey Zero, do you copy?" he said into the microphone.

He had to repeat the process for two very long, agonizing minutes, until he got a response.

_"This is Grey Zero. Where are you?"_ came Jack's familiar voice.

Seifer looked around at the vast room, grinning. "You're not gonna believe this," he said. "It's a shelter, just like Galbadia Garden."

_"You're in?"_

"I'm in the area in between," Seifer said. "It separates the walls from the inner core. The whole thing is lined with rooms, it's fucking unreal."

_"Can you see any way in?"_

"That's where you come in," Seifer said. "I don't exactly have much of a light source and it'll take hours to search the whole thing for a possible entrance. Check the blueprints."

_"Got it."_

_

* * *

_

Irvine felt he was a rather open-minded fellow on all aspects, including what he chose to eat. As someone who liked to occasionally cook, he had tried his share of strange delicacies from all over the world, including some that only he and Zell –and some times Rinoa- would dare touch.

But he drew the line at _this_.

When the dish was set on the table before him, part of him already knew he was going to refuse to eat it. The contents of the dish he'd just been served looked a little too close to something one would find digging through the internal organs of an animal; the substance on the plate was white, gooey and he could even spot little blood vessels on it. Cringing, he leaned down to Selphie and asked her what it was.

Selphie gave him a sympathetic grin, telling him only the name of the dish: _shirako_. When he asked for more details, she giggled, the sake-induced redness on her cheeks spreading all over her face, and she reached up to whisper in his ear what exactly shirako was.

And then Irvine politely refused to eat a single bite off that dish.

"Oh lighten up," Selphie said, picking up her chopsticks to try a bit of shirako.

"You eat that thing then you can forget about kissing me for a _month_," he said, glaring daggers at her.

"I would've thought you'd be a little more adventurous," Selphie said, letting out a sigh. "As an amateur cook-"

"Shh!" he hissed.

The fact that Irvine could cook –quite well at that- was something only he and Selphie knew. When he'd first cooked for her, Selphie had been delighted, eager to share his little secret with all their friends, but Irvine had asked her not to tell a soul. If any of the others found out, then it wouldn't be long before Zell did, and Irvine didn't think he could quite keep up with Zell's appetite, or his aggravatingly effective puppy-eyes.

He didn't know if this was something Zell did without realizing it, or if he was secretly far sneakier than anyone suspected, but his puppy-eyes were the stuff of legend. No-one could resist his demands once he turned on the wounded puppy charm. Considering how bummed he looked these days, the cowboy knew that if Zell caught so much as a whiff of his culinary prowess, he would be stuck cooking for him non-stop for a whole semester at least.

"Sorry, sorry, I forgot!" Selphie said, flashing him an apologetic grin and downing her cup of sake. "Did you try the unadon?"

"Yes."

"The gyoza?"

"Yeah. I liked those, but we're out," Irvine said, looking around the table just in case a waiter had brought a new plate.

As he was looking for something appetizing enough to try next, Selphie let out an excited gasp of surprise next to him.

"What, what?" he asked, trying to follow her gaze and see what had brought her so much glee.

"Sir Laguna!" Selphie said, turning toward the head of the table. "You're serving us _fugu_?" she asked, clutching her chest with both hands.

Laguna smiled at her, but shook his head. "No, sorry. I'm afraid this is plain old mackerel sashimi; Elle's favorite," he said, smiling at his ward fondly. "I used to have a chef qualified to prepare fugu in the premises, but I was forced to let him go. My advisors don't think it's wise to keep fugu in the palace in case someone actually tries to do me in," he finished, chuckling.

"Awwwww," Selphie said, looking a little disappointed. "Ah well. This looks delicious, either way. Kampai!" she said, raising her cup to him.

Laguna reciprocated the gesture with a tilt of his head, then went back to his conversation with Ellone and Rinoa.

"What the hell is fugu?" Irvine asked her. "And sashimi?"

"_That_, is sashimi," Selphie said, pointing at the platter one of the waiters was now serving.

Compared to most of the other dishes on the table, this one was by far the most plain, Irvine thought. There was little garnish to speak of and at first, he was puzzled as to why such a large plate was chosen since there seemed to be very little food on it. The moment the waiter placed it down, however, Irvine saw what was so special about it.

"Sashimi is the method they use to cut the fish, see?" Selphie said, refilling her cup with more sake.

The fish had been cut into small, petal-like pieces and arranged to form a giant chrysanthemum on the plate. The small fillets had been sliced so thin, that they were nearly transparent, making it easy to discern the pattern of the platter underneath. The only garnish on the plate was a pair of fragrant, lime-like fruit cut in halves and a small pile of a white substance which Selphie told him was the fish's skin.

"Huh," Irvine said, giving the dish a rather appreciative nod. "So why did you think this was vugu, or whatever it's called?"

"Well, you can serve lots of fish sashimi and fugu sashimi is one of the most notorious Esthari plates," Selphie said.

"Why notorious?" Irvine asked, fearing the answer was going to be something as off-putting as shirako.

"Fugu is poisonous," Selphie explained. "I think it's called pufferfish in Balamese. It's the one with the bugging eyes that blows up into a spiked ball when it senses danger," she went on, acting out the descriptions with her hands. "The poison contained in just one fugu's skin and organs is enough to kill every single person in this room and then some. It doesn't kill fast, but there's no antidote for it."

"And you want to _eat_ that?" Irvine asked, aghast.

"A trained chef can remove all the poison," Selphie said, waving a hand dismissively. "But the dish is always a bit of a gamble, because what if the chef made a mistake?" she went on, looking inappropriately excited at the notion. "It's a pretty delicate process, so you're practically trusting him with your life when you take that first bite. It's rumored that some of the best fugu chefs out there leave just a tiiiiny hint of poison on it to cause a bit of numbness on the lips and tongue as you eat it. Cool, huh?" she finished, chortling. "I gotta go pee," she said and stood up, wobbling on the spot.

"Yeah... awesome," Irvine muttered, as he watched her stumble out of the dining room in an –admittedly decent- effort not to trip all over her two feet.

* * *

Panting, Seifer fell into the dark room before him and crashed onto the floor, bringing up a cloud of dust with him.

_"You okay? What was that thud?"_

"Wait... for... a... sec..." he wheezed, wiping his sweaty forehead and coughing as he became enveloped in a dusty wreath.

Finding a way in had been the easy part. There was an emergency exit on one of the floors, leading straight into one of the corridors in the complex. The hard part had been getting the damned thing open. Despite all the advanced technology the Centraic people had poured into making Garden airborne, there was no circuit box to mess with, no keypad to feed data into. The emergency exit had been secured with nothing but a manually controlled wheel.

_Son-of-a-bitch that burns,_ Seifer thought, rubbing his aching muscles. It had taken forever to open the door and the moment he had, he had collapsed onto the corridor, exhausted. _When was the last time anyone cleaned this shithole? _he grumbled, still coughing as the dust surrounding him settled.

The corridor was nearly as dark as the shaft had been, but there was light coming from somewhere far off within the inner core. Seifer spent a couple of minutes staring at the dark ceiling, suddenly very aware of the fact that he was lying on a decades-old rug of dust and Hyne knew what other sort of filth, but at the moment, he couldn't move a single muscle.

_At least it's warm in here,_ he thought, thankful for the change in temperature.

_"Tic, toc, Grey Leader."_

"Hey, here's a thought," Seifer spat into the microphone. "Let's dip _you_ in a pool of freezing water, throw _your_ ass down into a dark shaft, make _you_ turn a fucking wheel rusted to all holy hell and _then_ lie in seven fucking inches of dust. See how _you_ like it."

_"Grey Two volunteered to go instead. It's not my fault you want to do everything yourself."_

"Yeah, yeah..." Seifer drawled and, very reluctantly, pushed himself off the floor.

_"By the way, if you've just been covered in dust, it might be a good idea to take some time to clean yourself up,"_ Jack said.

"I thought you _liked_ me dirty, hot stuff," Seifer quipped and stretched, groaning at the way his body protested under the strain.

_"You may be invisible to the camera, but if you leave behind muddy marks, someone's bound to notice."_

Seifer had a sudden vision of a trail of brown footprints showing up in front of a completely befuddled Balamb Garden employee. _Huh. Well... he's a pain in the arse, but at least he has a brain._ "Yeah, give me a couple of minutes."

Since he wasn't really carrying anything to wipe himself clean with, Seifer opted to wear his clothes inside out, with no small amount of disgust at the idea. As he got out of and back into his clothes, he kept picturing a large, luxurious tub filled to the brim with warm, clean water and a mountain of foam. Bubble baths were a chick thing as far as he was concerned, but right now, he longed for one more than anything in the world, questioned sexuality be damned.

_"You ready?"_ Jack asked.

"And filthier than I've ever been," Seifer said, cringing. "Okay, where do I go now?" he asked, as he reached into his mind to re-apply invisibility.

_"Head down the corridor on your left and continue down until you've reached the third intersection. Turn, then head down that way and you should see the exit to the inner core."_

Seifer did as he was instructed, counting the hallways he came across. _First intersection... Second... Third._ He walked down the narrow corridor as quietly as he could. He could see light in the distance, and if there was a light source, there could very well be a guard nearby, so he had to be silent.

_"Okay, checking the feed... I don't see anyone out there,"_ Jack said. _"There should be guards in the brig, but there's no-one outside. Still, try to be as quiet as you can."_

Once he reached the doorway that separated the shelter from the center of the MD Level, Seifer ventured a peek outside through the glass porthole at the top. Just like Jack had said, he could see no-one outside. Opening the door right now was still a tremendous risk, but one they had to take; if anyone was watching through that particular camera in the surveillance room, it was game over. He was banking on the chance that the man in charge couldn't look at all feeds at once, as well the darkness to mask his view somewhat. If they were lucky enough, he would go out unnoticed and they'd be able to edit that out later on.

Seifer took a deep breath. Carefully, he pushed the door open, clenching his teeth in the hopes that there would be no sound.

_"Okay, I see you..." _Jack whispered. _"Still no-one there. Better make it quick."_

When he had pushed the door far enough to make a sizable opening, Seifer slipped through and swiftly closed it behind him. There was a gentle thud, but nothing that was going to be heard over the dull hum of the engines roaring a few floors below.

_"Are you out?"_

"Yes," Seifer whispered back.

_"Okay, great. Go down the ladder and behind you, you'll see a large opening. It should lead down to the engine room and the server."_

Seifer followed Jack's instructions, his heartbeat thundering against his chest as he heard the distant voices of people for the first time since he had set foot in Garden's underground. As of now, he had to be very careful. Even if he couldn't be seen, he could very easily be heard. No SeeD would stay impassive at the source of a strange sound, even when they couldn't see anything with their own eyes. Invisibility was a rare thing even with magic involved, but it wouldn't be foreign to them.

Just like Jack had said, at the end of the large opening, Seifer found a ladder that led straight down to the engine room. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, since he wouldn't be able to hear Jack very well, the engines were making more than enough noise to mask his footsteps.

The twin turbines that kept Garden afloat twisted and whirred incessantly, large enough to take up almost the entire chamber. What little space they didn't occupy had been turned into a small room lined with plexi glass. There were two SeeDs sitting inside in front of a desk, staring at a TV screen, beers in their hands. Behind them, a large server crawling with wires had been set up.

Seifer stepped forward to take a closer look. The men were watching a Sphere game, he could see. Timber Toramas versus Balamb Bombs. Balamb was winning, four to one. _Shit. I had money on that game. Bloody Durgen can't make a decent pass to save his fucking l- Oh, yeah, the mission. Right._

He retreated, making his way back to the ladder, which, he figured, was safe enough a distance to try talking to Jack without being overheard.

"I'm at the server," he said, hoping Jack could hear him. "What do I do?"

_"Get the spider out,"_ Jack told him. _"You're gonna have to stick it on various conduits on the server to find the one we're looking for. You'll know it's the right one when the screen on the PDA switches to one of the rooms in the MD level. Use the camera; I'll help you out."_

"Yeah, that's not gonna happen," Seifer said. "The server is in a small room and I have to go through two guys to get there. They're watching TV, but I don't think I can actually slip in between them without them noticing."

_"Well... shite."_

"Yeah."

_"So... we're pretty much fucked."_

"Yeah."

_"Don't just say yeah! We didn't do through all this crap to give up now, there must be—"_

But Seifer never heard the end of that sentence, as at that precise moment, the lights in the room flickered once, twice. There was a very odd sound, like air being sucked out of a room, and the turbines slowed down, their whirring coming to a stop as they failed and completely shut down.

And then everything went dark.

* * *

Xu was getting impatient.

Trying to extract information from a suspect when said suspect had to think she was simply being friendly was no easy feat. So far, all she had learned was that Felix Von Troy had transferred to G-Garden when his family moved to Galbadia, he had a dog named Chiko whom he had left with his grandmother when they moved, he supported the Glace Grendels and had once won twenty thousand gil on a bet where the Grendels won ten seconds before the end of the game.

Once the tour was over, she mused, she would have to find an excuse to get him someplace more private. Trying to extract his secrets in front of a crowd in the middle of the hallway was impossible.

"You should definitely place an order for the _Magnum_ series," Felix was saying as they exited the library. "It's not as widely known as _Jerry Porter_, but it's fun and really addicting."

"You read _Jerry Porter_?" Xu asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Eh, I've read a book or two. Mostly seen the movies," he said.

_Great, now we'll move on to literature,_ Xu drawled inwardly. Next thing she knew, they were going to be discussing favorite foods, still miles away from everything she wanted to find out.

The thought of getting him drunk occurred to her then. It wasn't exactly subtle, but hell, neither was she, and she knew she was getting nowhere by asking about his damned hobbies. There was simply no way to turn a casual conversation into business talk without arousing suspicions. Beating it all out of him, while tempting and far more effective, was impractical right now.

"Hey, how about a-?" she began, intending to suggest getting a drink, but the words died on her mouth when a loud hiss from above got her attention.

One of the lights on the ceiling fizzled and went out. One by one, the other lamps followed suit, all failing, until the whole structure was rendered dark.

The crowd around Xu let out a collective gasp and then all hell broke loose.

* * *

Selphie was fully aware of the fact that her outfit traditionally went with particularly demure, lady-like conduct. There was nothing lady-like, however, about the swear-word that left her lips the moment the power went out.

Still cursing as she wobbled around in the darkness, she pulled her underwear up, hoping she hadn't accidentally caught her dress with it and was about to walk out of the bathroom with her ass hanging out for all the world to see. Arms held out in front of her, she tried to make her way out of the bathroom, hoping she could return to the dining room without falling on her face on the way there.

There were no lights to speak of anywhere in the vicinity. What she assumed was a blackout had clearly affected the whole city.

_Isn't there a back-up generator in this place? Geeeeeeez._

Eventually, she managed to reach the door. At least, that's what she thought it was, as the moment she threw her weight on it, it swung forward and propelled her straight into something cold and hard. The copious amounts of alcohol in her bloodstream weren't helping her coordination as it was, and if she kept bumping into every other wall on her way to the dining room, she feared she was going to throw up all over the expensive Centraic rugs decorating the hallways.

She had no idea whatsoever if she was even heading in the right direction. She could hear voices and loud thumping noises somewhere in the distance; she guessed the staff were running back and forth in an effort to find a light source until power was restored.

Gluing herself up against the wall to keep from falling over, Selphie walked on ahead, following the source of the sound. Her eyes were starting to get used to the darkness and she could make out shapes, something that proved to be a Hynesent when she narrowly avoided an ornamental end table holding what was probably a priceless Shumi vase.

After what felt like a really long time, the noises and voices grew louder, a good sign that she was getting close to people. Tentatively, she reached out with one hand, pawing the surface before her to try and make out whether it was a wall or a door.

The answer came to her when the surface gave in and she fell forward, bringing down a clutter of objects and people along with her. There was a loud crash, something that felt like an elbow smacked her right across the chin and she landed on something soft, spongy and putrid.

_Door_.

* * *

"Did you do that?" Seifer whispered into his microphone.

_"The blackout?"_ asked Jack. _"No way. I don't even know what the hell- Whoa."_

"What?"

_"It's not just here,"_ Jack said. _"There's a power failure all over Esthar. Damn... I can't see a thing out there."_

Unfortunately, Seifer could. The engine room clearly had a small back-up generator of its own. Not enough to supply all of Garden, but enough to keep the server and a few emergency lights running.

The two SeeDs were already working to restore power to the whole structure. Seifer couldn't tell what the extent of the damage was, but under the circumstances, he had to assume the technicians would be able to resolve the issue soon. He had a small opening to make his move; waiting around while weighing his options would achieve nothing other than waste precious time.

_"I guess B-Garden was getting power straight from Esthar's generators to save up for the journ-"_

"Quiet!" Seifer hissed into the microphone and, as quietly as he could, hurried over to the server room.

_"What are you-?"_

"The technicians are distracted, so I'm going in. Now shut up," Seifer explained.

As quietly as he could, Seifer began to move toward the server room. The small back-up generator was providing nothing more than a gentle hum to mask his footsteps; he had to tread lightly.

"Awww maaaaaan," one of the technicians groaned, hunched over a hatch below the twin turbines. "The whole thing's fried. We're gonna have to replace it," he said, yanking out a part of the engine Seifer didn't recognize or care about.

Looking over his shoulder to make sure both men were looking elsewhere, Seifer slinked into the small room and hurried over to the server. It looked more like a living thing than a machine, the way hundreds of wires spilled out from the large black towers that made up the structure. Every tower was labeled, naming the section of Balamb Garden it represented. Seifer came to a stop before the tower that read _'Surv. Ntwk.'_

He stared at the jumble of bright blue conduits before him, cringing. He was supposed to pin the microscopic camera somewhere on his shirt front so Jack could help him find the wire, but with the lights out, it wouldn't do much good. _Bugger the camera,_ he thought and began examining the wires. Jack had told him to try each and every one of them in turn to find the conduit that gave them access to the MD level, but time was a luxury he couldn't afford right now.

_Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,_ he thought, and picked out a random conduit. As quickly as he could, he clipped the spider on the wire and turned on the receiver. The screen lit up, displaying the feed of the camera monitoring the infirmary.

Cursing under his breath, he picked out another random wire and repeated the process. Library feed.

_Come on, come oooooon..._ He tried another one: Squall's office. He was beginning to think it was a bad idea to waste time down there when he could use the distraction caused by the power failure to get to the brig unnoticed. Without access to the camera feed they would be unable to edit out his visit to the prisoner's cell, but he could always destroy the camera and be done with it. It was a messy solution, one that would definitely merit an investigation, but when faced with the possibility of getting nothing whatsoever done instead, Seifer preferred to take a small risk and work with the hand he was dealt.

He was about to give up and follow his own advice, when the receiver's screen changed once again, now showing the front of the brig.

_YES!_

Wasting no more time in the server room, Seifer slipped out and bolted for the ladder. He was glad to see the power had yet to be restored, so perhaps getting into the brig would prove to be easier than he originally thought.

"It's done," he told Jack, while climbing up the ladder and willing himself to move as fast as he could before the lights turned back on.

_"You did it? YOU DID IT!"_

Seifer was so elated himself that he didn't even bother chastizing Jack for yelling right into his ear. "I did it," he said. "I'm off to the brig. Get to work, you'll need to switch feeds in a few minutes."

* * *

With a groan, Selphie lifted her head off the slime-covered mess before her, fighting the urge to heave.

"Fucking Hyne, what is that _smell_?" she wondered out loud, her voice cutting through the whispers of Esthari all around her.

She had no idea where she was or who was in there with her, but it was safe to say this wasn't the dining room; she couldn't make out a single familiar voice. Not wasting any time trying to get her bearings, Selphie focused on getting back on her feet as the overpowering smell was truly getting to her.

There was a loud clang and a sharp groan of pain from someone beneath her as she moved about. She whispered a hurried apology and crawled over to the floor, confident she was on solid enough ground not to injure anyone else if she tried to stand up now.

She was in the process of trying to find something to hold on to, when the lights above her flickered. There was a collective gasp, then a moment of silence as they all waited to see what was going to happen. Another flicker, and the power was fully restored.

Selphie joined everyone in the room into a round of loud applause and sighs of relief.

When the excitement wore down, the people around her immediately set off to work again, paying little attention to her.

She was in the kitchens, she realized. All around her, the staff was already getting back to work in order to continue preparing the lavish meal she and her friends had been enjoying for the better part of the night. She was temped to stick around a little longer and watch the chefs cook. However, she figured the staff was busy enough without having to to deal with her questions on top of their workload.

With a little more grace than she had arrived, Selphie made her way toward the exit of the kitchens. On her way out, she noticed a member of the staff cleaning up the garbage that had spilled out from the waste bin she had upended earlier on.

Feeling a little guilty for creating the mess of vegetable peels and fish heads that was now spread all over the floor, she decided to help the man out before returning to the dining room.

She approached him, looking as apologetic as she could without putting it to words; she had no idea if he spoke any Balamese. "Help?" she asked, pointing at the garbage bin.

The man looked up, startled. There was a slightly panicky look on his eyes as Selphie repeated the question, but after a few seconds, he seemed to understand what she was trying to say and grinned at her, shaking his hands and head in negation. "No help. All okay," he said in broken Balamese.

"Please," Selphie insisted, kneeling down on the floor next to him. "It's my fault you have to do this, so let me-" she said, trying to scoop up a handful of cucumber peels.

"No help," the man repeated, pushing her hands away. "You go back, food coming now."

"I just want to-" Selphie began, but words suddenly failed her.

Among all the garbage on the floor, she could see several discarded parts of various fish. There was a particular fish head, however, that caught her attention. It was large, with distinct, protruding eyes and puffy cheeks. It was the head of a pufferfish. _Fugu_.

_But... Laguna said he didn't have a chef who can-_

Realization struck her like a bolt of lightning.

She whirled around toward the exit, where she saw a waiter holding a platter identical to the mackerel sashimi they'd been served earlier. Both mackerel and fugu had white meat like most fish, making their flesh virtually the same to any outsider's eyes. It didn't take long to put two and two together. Unfortunately for her, the man next to her seemed to have read the look of recognition on her face correctly.

Selphie sprang up to her feet, just as the man reached for the discarded top of the garbage bin. Her outfit, not to mention the copious amounts of sake she had consumed, were significantly dampening her reflexes. She saw the attack coming, but she knew she could not move fast enough to avoid it.

The cover of the waste bin connected with her head, letting out a deafening, gong-like 'clang!' Selphie lost her balance and fell on the floor, holding her aching head with one hand. _Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!_

The man, with strength she wouldn't have thought possible, clamped a hand over her mouth and pulled her up to her feet. Selphie trashed in his arms, but he pinned her body right against his with his free arm. In her half-panicked, half-inebriated state, she managed to scrounge up enough clarity to realize she was vastly outnumbered; even though she doubted any person in that kitchen knew half the things she did about incapacitating someone, they could easily overwhelm her if they all came at her together.

To her surprise, she saw that some of the kitchen staff were just as surprised and scandalized about the attack as she was. Before they could even move a muscle to help her, they were overpowered by who she guessed where her assailant's accomplishes.

The man holding her yelled something to the waiter, who nodded in response and sped out of the kitchen, platter in hand.

_NO!_

Selphie swung her legs up in a well-practiced maneuver that was meant to give her enough momentum to throw her attacker over her shoulder. Her feet landed back down and she threw her weight forward, but the man holding her was either too strong or too skilled to budge; he barely moved an inch.

As she landed, however, her right shoulder slipped off his grip, freeing her whole arm. Despite her duller reflexes, Selphie's SeeD training was by now such a deeply ingrained part of her, that she didn't even have to think about her next move. Before the attacker had time to pin her arm down again, she reached up swiftly, pulling out one of the ornamental chopsticks holding her bun together. With as much force as she could muster, Selphie brought the chopstick down on his thigh.

At the sound of the gut-wrenching scream, she knew she had succeeded. His grip loosened at once, and Selphie pulled away with ease, landing a crushing punch right on his nose. She was off before he even hit the ground.

For the first time since she'd bought it, Selphie rued the day she had ever decided to own a kimono. She could hardly run in it, not to mention the platform shoes, but stopping even for a second to loosen her dress and kick the shoes off could be fatal.

She was almost at the door, when one of the man's accomplices lunged for her, grabbing a hold of her kimono. There was a harsh ripping sound as the skirt of her dress split in two; the man's weight was enough to put a stop to her sprint.

Whirling around on the spot, Selphie didn't stop to lament her now destroyed kimono, but instead used the new-found freedom of movement to bring her leg around for a powerful kick that connected with the man's head.

She spun around to face the door again and, without pausing, she pushed it open and staggered out into the corridor.

* * *

"OW!"

"Sorry, sorry!"

"Zell?"

"Quistis?"

Quistis reached out with a hand blindly, trying to find Zell in the darkness. Around her, everyone else were trying to get their bearings, amidst whispers and queries as to what had happened. Quistis's hand met with a shoulder; she squeezed it, trying to figure out whether it was Zell's or someone else's.

"Zell, is that you I'm touching?" Quistis asked.

A warm hand covered hers. "This your hand?" Zell asked.

"Yes," Quistis answered. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. What the hell just happened?"

"Everyone calm down!" came Laguna's voice from somewhere within the room. "It's just a blackout. The back-up generator should be up and running soon enough; we-"

Just as Laguna mentioned it, power was restored and Quistis let out a sigh. Esthar's last major blackout had occurred a little less than a week ago, and according to what she had read on the paper, it had taken the technicians hours to restore power.

"There we go!" Laguna said, grinning broadly. "Kiros, Ward, can you go check-?"

"On it," Kiros said, before Laguna had even finished his question. He and Ward left the room in a hurry, off to check what was going on with the power in the palace and the rest of the city, Quistis assumed.

After those few eventful minutes, it was a relief to know their peaceful night wouldn't have to come to an end sooner than planned. The cool, sweet sake was having a relaxing effect on her, and Quistis wasn't at all eager to head back to Garden quite yet.

Laguna went on to refresh everyone's drinks and assured them that dinner was most certainly not over. Sure enough, a few minutes later, waiters reappeared at the threshold, carrying platter after platter of Esthari delicacies. From what little she caught of Laguna's conversation with a member of the staff, Quistis heard him ask if they were having any issues with the power in the kitchen, as well as congratulate them for being so professional and going on with their work under the circumstances.

The last of the waiters approached the table, setting down a plate in front of Ellone.

"Uncle, I told you not to-" Ellone began to protest.

"It's your favorite," Laguna said, grinning.

"It is, but you didn't have to order the chef to make another serving just for me when we have so many guests," she said, looking only partly angry at him. "Everyone, dig in if you liked the mackerel," she said. "I'm not going to eat the whole thing on my own."

Quistis was about to take Ellone up on her offer, when a loud crash and yells coming from the corridor outside made everyone pause their dinner and stare at the door. There was something that sounded like a scuffle, then a high-pitched scream and the doors burst open, revealing a very battered-looking Selphie.

Her kimono had been torn to shreds. There was a thick crimson torrent of blood running down from her disheveled hair to her cheek. One of her fists was clenched so tightly the knuckles had gone white, and within it, she was holding one of the chopsticks that had once held her hair up; it was coated in blood. She was struggling to catch her breath, like she had just ran a marathon from the depths of hell all the way back to the dining room.

"DON'T TOUCH THE SASHIMI!" she shrieked at Ellone, panting and wobbling on the spot.

Ellone, along with everyone else in the room, had long ago dropped her chopsticks in utter shock and was now staring at Selphie wide-eyed.

"Sefie...?" Irvine said weakly. "What the heck hap-?"

"It's poisoned!" she said, her steps faltering as she approached the table. "Fugu... the chef... Not- it's fugu," she stammered, before taking one final shaky step and collapsing onto the floor.

* * *

"BE QUIET!" Xu shouted, her voice carrying over the noise in the main hall. Immediately, the cadets and SeeDs surrounding her fell silent, clearly recognizing her voice.

The moment the power had failed, the main hall erupted in noises ranging from excitement right down to shrieks of terror from the junior classmen. Desperate to instill some order and find out what had caused the blackout, Xu had tried to make her way to the elevator to see if it worked, in order to head up to the third floor and try and get the intercom working.

Within her struggle to make it up the steps, she had been trampled on by more people than she cared to count, and she wasn't certain Felix was still with her.

For all she knew, he had used the momentary distraction to slip away.

_Where's a Hynedamned light spell when you need one?_ she thought, clenching her teeth. _There's a spell for every fucking element in existence and then some, but no-one thought it might be a good idea to come up with a spell to provide light?_

She was tempted to light up a Firaga to see just what the hell was going on, but with so many people surrounding her, someone was bound to get injured.

_This whole thing reeks of Seifer_, she thought. _Son-of-a-bitch thinks he can get away with-_

Suddenly, the lights above her flickered to life. There was a ripple of cheers and applause from everyone and Xu was more than a little surprised to see that Felix was still there by her side. "Everyone head back to your dormitories," Xu called out. "And stay there until further notice!"

"Jeez, what was-?" Felix began, but before he had time to form any more words, Xu grabbed him by the front of his jacket and marched over to the elevator.

"You're coming with me," she said, seething.

Felix stumbled on after her, looking more than a little shocked and confused at the harsh treatment. "What are you-?"

"Shut up," Xu snarled at him, not stopping even when he nearly tripped over the stairs. She pushed the call button and stepped into the elevator, dragging Felix along with her. As soon as the doors closed behind them, Xu slammed the man right against the glass wall and ripped his jacket open.

"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND?" Felix yelled, trying to push her away.

"Where is it?" Xu said, her hands traveling up and down his torso.

"Where is _what_?"

"That blackout was _not_ a coincidence," Xu said, searching every visible inch of his body she could get her hands on. "Someone tipped you off."

"You think I'm bugged?" Felix said, frowning at her, but he did not resist anymore.

"I _know_ you're bugged," Xu said. "It's not a question of _if_, it's a question of _where_."

"I had nothing to do with the damned blackout!" Felix protested. "How could I- ?"

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out," Xu said.

By the time they reached the third floor, she had searched every possible nook and cranny of his body where a wire could be hidden. The lining of his clothes, his trousers, his jacket, behind his ears, but she had come up with nothing.

When the elevator doors opened, Felix was a disheveled mess of hair flying all over the place and clothes askew, and even though she had found nothing, Xu was still convinced he wasn't innocent.

"Are you done?" Felix drawled. "Or should I expect a cavity search as well?"

Xu jerked her head toward the corridor. Shaking his head, Felix stepped out and she followed suit, determined to get to the bottom of this.

* * *

Quistis had never before seen Laguna so angry.

After Selphie's dramatic entrance and subsequent collapse, Irvine and Rinoa had rushed to her side. Rinoa had been able to bring Selphie back to consciousness long enough for her to identify the culprits. It didn't take long before she passed out again, and Irvine took her to one of the bedrooms in the palace to rest and recover. Laguna had immediately ordered a lockdown on the palace and called his guards to arrest the kitchen staff.

Within the commotion, Ellone, who had heard enough to understand that she had been one mouthful away from death, had quietly retired to her room, looking paler than chalk.

The three remaining SeeDs, along with Rinoa, were transferred to the lounge where they were told to wait, unable to do anything but watch as Laguna yelled at everyone and everything for allowing this to happen.

Squall, never one comfortable with staying behind while others rushed into action, was pacing back and forth the room, his expression grim. Quistis, Rinoa and Zell all sat on one of the comfortable couches, huddled together and wearing identical grimaces of shock and horror.

"Hyne, was it-? Were they after Elle, or was it meant for all of us?" Rinoa asked, bringing her knees up to her chest.

She didn't have to explain what 'it' was.

Quistis nervously toyed with a stray lock of hair, considering the question. "Laguna said it was Ellone's favorite dish; they made it specifically for her," she began. "I guess... well... maybe they wanted to kill her, but didn't mind if the rest of us went down with her."

"Why Sis, though?" Zell asked, staring at the wall across him blankly. "She never hurt a soul."

"Her powers?" Rinoa suggested. "Not that she ever harmed anyone, but... maybe they feared her."

"Or maybe," Squall said, coming to a stop with his back turned to all of them, staring out the window. "This is all somehow connected."

"What do you mean?" Zell asked.

Quistis knew what he meant. She was convinced there was something connecting all the recent events, but she had no idea what that might be. "He means everything that's been happening lately," she replied. "The attack against the Archbishop, the strange weapon they found on the attacker, the suspect Selphie and I failed to apprehend... and then there's tonight."

"It's suspicious how things keep on piling up, sure," Zell said, his left leg bobbing up and down nervously. "But what connection? I don't see it."

"Yet," Squall said, still not turning around.

Silence fell between them again. Quistis sunk against the soft cushions of the couch, staring at the ceiling listlessly. She hated being told to wait, not knowing what was happening outside. She knew Squall and Zell felt the same way, perhaps even Rinoa.

Her thoughts strayed to the last two of their company. _Selphie... Hyne, she looked a mess,_ Quistis thought._ I hope she's alright. She's tough, but when she came in looking like that..._

"Rinoa?" Quistis asked. "When you went to patch up Selphie, how did she look? Is she going to be okay?"

Rinoa nodded. "She had a pretty deep head wound, but she'll be fine," she said and suddenly let out a small giggle. "You know that old adage, 'you should have seen the other guy' ?" she asked, grinning.

"Yes."

"You should have seen the other guy," she repeated. "One of them had a broken nose and this nasty hole right on his thigh, Kiros said. She got him with her chopstick. And another one got such a strong kick to the head half his face ballooned into a huge bump."

"Good girl," Zell said, his voice full of pride. "She kicked those bastards' asses."

Quistis nodded in consent, glad above all else that Selphie had made it out in one piece. With a fleeting glance toward Squall, she noticed he, too, had a hint of a grin on his lips.

Their idle conversation was interrupted when Laguna wrenched the door of the lounge open and stepped inside. He looked significantly calmer than the enraged man who had bellowed orders to his guards a few minutes ago, but his eyes still shone with barely suppressed rage.

"An armed guard is escorting half the kitchen staff to penitentiary as we speak," he said, closing the door behind him. He turned to the three people on the couch, looking weary and nearly a decade older after the ordeal. "Can one of you go check up on Ellone?" he asked. "I need to talk to Squall about a few things."

"I'll go," Quistis offered, standing up.

Laguna nodded in thanks and gave her a pat on the shoulder as she walked past him. "She's in her room. Do you know-?"

"I know where it is," Quistis said, giving him a sympathetic smile before exiting the lounge.

She nearly ran down the hallway, part of her afraid that with everything else happening, someone may have found an opportunity to carry out another, successful attempt to murder Ellone. She knew that Laguna would've never let her go without a guard to escort her after everything that had transpired, but she hurried along all the same, wanting to see with her own eyes that Ellone was safe.

All around her, the palace staff was abuzz with the latest development, whispering among themselves and looking shaken up. Quickening her pace, she finally reached the corridor where Ellone's room was. To her immense relief, she saw two guards stationed on either end of the corridor, keeping their distance out of respect, but still watching over her.

The guards had no trouble recognizing Quistis, and gave her the okay to enter. Thanking them, Quistis approached the door and saw that it was slightly ajar. She was about to knock before entering, but the sounds she heard coming from within the room stopped her; Ellone wasn't alone. A man was talking to her and his deep voice was vaguely familiar.

Carefully, Quistis peeked through the thin crack of the door, confirming her suspicion. The person talking to Ellone was Logan Vale, Laguna's aide. He was holding Ellone's shoulders, looking at her in concern, while she spoke to him in rapid Esthari. Quistis could only pick up a few words here and there; not nearly enough to help her piece together what was being said, but Ellone was clearly talking about the attack and somewhere along the line, she mentioned she was scared for herself and... someone, something else?

Quistis thought it was a little inappropriate of Vale to be standing so close to Ellone, but the girl looked and sounded so upset, that Quistis was glad someone was trying to comfort her. She was about to knock and let them know Laguna had sent her over, when she saw Vale cup Ellone's face in his hands and lean in to kiss her on the lips.

Quistis froze; she had no idea Ellone was involved with someone, let alone Vale. All of a sudden, she felt like she was intruding on something very personal.

"Ochitsuke, anata," Vale said, running his fingers through Ellone's hair. "Ima daijoubu desu."

Unable to stifle a smile at the tenderness Vale was touching and talking to Ellone with, Quistis made a move to leave and give them some privacy.

She was about to turn around, when she saw him wrap one arm around Ellone's shoulders and place the other on her stomach. He leaned in to whisper something in her ear, something that made Ellone smile and rest her head against his chest.

Quistis didn't need to hear what had just been said to make sense of the situation. Their body language was loud and clear: Ellone was not only involved in a serious relationship, she was pregnant.

Deciding she had seen enough, Quistis stepped away from the door as discreetly as she could. She didn't know what to make of the news. On one hand, she was really glad to see Ellone was happy, so obviously in love and about to become a mother.

On the other hand, she was terrified of what all this meant. Would she have a normal pregnancy? Would the child inherit her powers? Did Laguna know about this? Did _anyone_?

And more importantly... was Ellone's unborn child the target of tonight's incident?

* * *

Seifer stifled a sigh of relief as the door to the brig closed behind him. If he had arrived but a few seconds later, the lights would've turned on and he never would have made it through the door unnoticed by the guards; just barely after he had entered, the power had been restored.

He kept his invisibility on, walking down across the corridor and out of earshot.

"I'm in the brig," he whispered, his heart still racing.

_"Good, good! Let me know when you find the cell; I'm ready."_

Seifer didn't have to search long. The brig held only two cells and after discovering one of them empty, he knew the suspect had to be imprisoned in the other one.

"I'm there," he said, standing behind the door leading to the cell. "Do it."

With the spider in place down in the server, Jack was now free to mess with the camera feed to his liking without being detected. If any of them had slipped up, all traces could now easily be erased from the camera recording and replaced with something inconspicuous.

For obvious reasons, there were no cameras overlooking the cells. _Wouldn't want anyone to see what goes on in there, _Seifer thought wryly.

_"Alright... Switching feeds in three, two, one... Done. Be alert. If I ask you to turn invisible again, do it at once."_

Removing his invisibility and giving Jack a nod he could now see, Seifer pressed his hand against the door, his body brimming with anticipation. This was it. Their missing link. The lost piece of the puzzle in a months-long investigation that had come to such an abrupt halt.

"Is Felix there yet?" Seifer asked, knowing he would need someone to translate for him.

_"No. Don't worry though. I'm recording the whole thing and I know enough to be able to figure out what is being said. If he does understand Balamese like you suspect he does, it shouldn't be a problem. Go."_

Seifer pushed the door open...

And what he saw made him gasp in horror.

* * *

Quistis's departure was closely followed by Zell and Rinoa's. Though Laguna hadn't specifically asked them to leave, Squall assumed they realized Laguna would feel more comfortable speaking to him in private. They mentioned checking up on Selphie and left the room quietly, leaving Squall alone with his father.

Laguna walked up to him, looking full of purpose. Squall met his gaze when he came to a stop, waiting to hear what he had known Laguna was going to say ever since the moment they realized Ellone's life was in danger.

"You're officially hired," Laguna said.

Squall nodded in consent.

"Find whoever did this. I don't care how, I don't care how many people you use, how much money you'll need," Laguna went on. "Just find them and bring them to me. The cost-"

Squall shook his head. "We can discuss the fee some other time," he said. "Don't worry about it just now."

Laguna nodded, rubbing his forehead with one palm. Squall had to marvel at the way he was handling the situation. The few times he had seen Laguna take charge in the past, it had been within the context of his role as a President. For all he knew, it was a mask that Laguna had learned to wear –and wear well- during his long term in office.

This time, however, it was different. _He_ was different. His reaction wasn't the reaction of the rare, honorable politician who rushed into action in order to defend justice. It was the reaction of a parent who was horrified and enraged at the prospect of someone trying to harm his child.

It was a face Laguna had never shown in Squall's presence before. While he was impressed, not to mention grateful to have Laguna's resources backing him up in this case, Squall couldn't help but feel intensely jealous at the same time. Deep down, he knew Laguna cared about him, but would he ever care enough to bestow the same treatment upon him if he was ever in danger like Ellone was? The logical part of him told him that he was a soldier, that he was supposed to be putting his life on the line constantly, and perhaps Laguna had long ago accepted that.

But there was another part, the sentimental part of him, the part that that held all the vile, weak, pitiful things in his heart, the disgusting little morsels that made him antagonize Ellone at a time like this.

_Pathetic,_ he chastized himself. _You're pathetic, Squall. Your sister was nearly killed tonight and you're jealous of her. You're a fucking-_

"I should-" Squall suddenly said, looking away. The last thing he wanted right now was to be lost into his own thoughts. Having something to sink his teeth into for the following weeks would provide a big distraction, at the very least. "I should probably gather everyone up and get going," he said. "We all need a good night's rest before we can tackle the investigation."

"Yeah, sure," Laguna said, nodding. "I'm just sorry our evening together had to end like this."

Squall shrugged. "It's okay. It's not your fault. You didn't-"

"Mr. President, sir!"

Both Laguna and Squall turned together toward the doorway. Three Esthari guards had just rushed in, heading straight for them. If the urgency in the first man's voice hadn't been enough to alert them there was more bad news on the way, Squall had but to take one look at the one hanging back from the small group to realize something was horribly wrong; he was the only one who had taken his mask off, and there was a sickly, clammy look about his face. He looked like he had just thrown up, or was about to.

"What's wrong?" Laguna said, a new surge of panic surging up in his tone.

The guard who had spoken came to a stop in front of Laguna. Such was his hurry that he didn't even bother saluting his President. "Sir... th-the prisoners..." he stammered, shaking his head. "The gunner, too. I-"

"What _happened_?" Laguna pressed on, his face clouding. "Did they escape?"

"No, sir," the man continued, breathing hard. He reached up and removed his mask in a hurry, like it was suffocating him. Squall wasn't surprised to see that underneath, he looked just like the sickly one of the group. His hair was drenched in cold sweat and he refused to look Laguna in the eye. "They... they just..."

"Breathe," Squall cut in, forcing all vestiges of panic out of his voice. He, too, feared hearing the worst, but they weren't going to get anywhere if the guard was unable to string more than two words together. "Take your time, and start from the beginning."

The man nodded, swallowing hard. He spent nearly a full minute gathering his wits, but at long last, he looked up at Laguna, his breathing a little steadier. "We were escorting the kitchen staff to their cells," he began narrating. "Everything was going well. They didn't fight back, they didn't protest, they didn't look worried... Hell, they didn't even say a word."

There was something very familiar about that behavioral pattern, Squall realized. It wasn't often that a suspect, guilty or not, accepted his fate staunchly and remained impassive during his incarceration. That type of behavior stood out, and Squall suddenly realized what it all reminded him of.

"We were just about to leave the facility when alarms went off," the guard said. "Barely a minute after we'd left them."

_No, no... Don't say it..._

"They... they were all dead, sir," he said, his voice shaking. "Committed suicide the moment they were alone in their cells. The suspect for the Archbishop's case, too."

"_WHAT_?" Laguna thundered. "Didn't you search them for concealed-?"

In a very unorthodox move for a military man addressing his President, the guard interrupted Laguna. "We did, sir!" he said, a pleading look in his eyes. "They were clean, completely clean!"

"Then how the hell did they kill themselves?" Laguna asked.

"We... we think," the man said, looking faint again. "We think they used poison capsules, sir. Probably hid them under their tongues; that's why they wouldn't speak-"

"There is no poison that can kill in under a minute," Squall interjected. "Didn't it occur to you to call a medic?"

"W-wouldn't do much good, sir," the guard said, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Why the hell not?" Squall asked. "At the very least, have them examine the bodies-"

"There... there are no bodies... left to speak of, sir."

* * *

_"Grey Leader? Come on, man, speak up. I'm getting worried here; I haven't heard a single sound in two minutes. What the hell is going on?"_

Seifer held up a hand to his mouth, fighting back the bile that threatened to rise up to his throat. Gritting his teeth and breathing very hard through his nose, he opened his mouth just long enough to answer back.

"Abort mission. Pack everything and leave the room now."

_"What? Why? What the fuck hap-?"_

"I said, NOW. Switch the feed back to normal, pack up and leave. I won't say it again."

Seifer rushed to the door, only barely remembering to turn invisible again. He had no idea how he was supposed to make it back without getting noticed, but the only thing he was concerned with at the moment was the sight he had come across inside the brig.

_Get out of here. Get some air. Wash your fucking brain with bleach. Whatever. Just get out, get out, get out..._

He hadn't felt that way in nearly two years. He had long ago gotten over every horrible memory from the war, but all the blood, the gore, the carnage was suddenly coming back to him full force. And yet, he could not mentally summon an image that even came close to being as disturbing as what he had just seen:

The prisoner, sitting in a chair at the very center of his cell.

Only it wasn't the prisoner anymore. There wasn't enough of him _left_ to call that bloody, disintegrated mass a person.

The body, if that was even an adequate enough term to describe it, had been eaten away, literally eroded, exposing bones, muscles and organs. The room had smelled of burning flesh, metal and the pungent scent of acid.

As Seifer exited the cell, he could still hear the sizzling sound of the prisoner's body continuing to disintegrate.

* * *

**A/N:** I don't know when the next update is going to be. I have exams coming up soon, so if I find myself too wrapped up in revising, there won't be much time to write. Chapter twelve could be up in a month, or maybe more, we'll see. Sorry in advance.

That having been said, things should start slowing down a little in the story. At least for now ;) After so many consecutive developments, I feel that a couple of slow-paced chapters are in order.

You may wonder what happened with Nida and Shizuka who were also meant to corner one of Seifer's men each. I left those scenes out intentionally, as the chapter was huge enough already, and there wouldn't be much of interest to show. Still, you'll find out exactly what happened to them and get answers to everything else that has been left hanging in the next chapter.

Till next time!


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